A Delhi Wedding - Part 1

Arabi Khalique

227 Getty avenue,

Clifton, NJ 07011

2/7/2023

My dear friend and Godbrother Charlie D. Maverick

As I am writing these words to you, I can't even begin to describe what level of annoyance this is. I hoped in the great Lord's name that you would begin to catch up with the new technology that is out now, but you haven't, so the only way for me to contact you is through this clandestine method of writing a letter. Or you have and I just don't have the number.

Anyhow, we should meet up, not only for the reason I am writing this letter but to catch up on what going on in our lives. Its been 6 years, and mum keeps asking of you. She is very angry, saying how disrespected she feels by your not coming to see her or even calling her. So please, come by, we are all waiting.

However, I have another reason for contacting you. You might not know, but for the past 3 years I have been working as a PI in the Tri-State area. It seemed only natural after my years of working at the surveillance company. And business has been good.

I found a niche, a market in the Indian community here in the Tri-State area. By Indian I mean Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka as well. These folks do arrange marriages, and even when their children choose their own partners, they are very involved in the process leading to the wedding. So many of these families hire me to run comprehensive background check on the prospective groom or bride.

You get the idea, a rich man whose only daughter is marrying an unknown man might want to know more about the man or vice versa. The more money I am given, the more thorough the check is. Mind you, this is all information pertaining to the cause of the letter's writing.

3 months ago, I was approached by the owner of a grocery chain here in NJ. He was very worried about the man his daughter was marrying. As my name was well known in the community in this sort of business, he requested my service. To do a complete background check on his soon to be son-in-law, find out where his family is and what standing they have, to see if the man has a good name or if he has done anything shady in the past.

This gentleman offered me a nice 6 figure sum to give him a full report. I obliged without a question.

The son-in-law seemed to be a good guy. He works for an IT company, which he actually is a shareholder of. He also has ancestral wealth from his paternal grandfather's side and has a mansion in New-Delhi from them. His colleagues hold him in good esteem and his schooling in Harvard brought about much wholesome compliments.

However Charlie, Once I began to dig deep, curious facts started appearing. For one, even though I was able to find his lineage to the fourth generation, they were only of the male members of the family. The only information I have of a female member is his mother, who committed suicide shortly after marrying the father.

Another interesting info is that when I had his DNA tested, he was found to be not of Indian descent at all but of Eastern European. This is what led me to do further investigation into the groom, after my initial screening.

Just to point out before you get annoyed, Charlie. I don't use anybody's name in this letter because I am not legally allowed to. Also, I don't want anyone else to get their hands on the info I lay here and then have them bother my clients. I know you understand.

Getting back to my work, I had Sinha, my contact in New Delhi, go and dig out information regarding the father and the grandfather and whatever else he could find out, from both official and unofficial record. I wanted to know how it was possible for the groom to be of Eastern European ancestry, when his mother was Indian. Sinha had his work cut out for him.

Meanwhile, I was here verifying the education background he had. He went to a prestigious college in New York, and by all accounts was an exemplary student. The professors spoke well of him, saying he was a very sharp man and understood any and all complex subjects they would teach. Most praise came from the history professor, who was really impressed with the tenacity our mysterious groom was studying that subject. The history professor mentioned that he was particularly infatuated with the Ottoman Empire.

The college report was good, it bore him a clean name but it also brought another fact to the matter. His major was History and he works (owns too) a IT firm. Why did he major in history then? His background is cluttered with unusual stuff like that.

Take his high-school for example, records stated he went went there from 2008 to 2011. An A grade student, who got all the scholarships available. Again, the groom was popular and very well liked, and the teachers gave him solid recommendations. So far conventional, but then a fact stared right at me. In all his high-school years, going right up to and through college, he never had any girlfriends. Well, let alone girlfriends, he never even went on a date. I spoke to many of his schoolmates and collegemates, they all say they never saw or heard of him going out with anybody. How come a dashing guy, with the supposed charm he had, stay bloody well like a virgin all these years? If the information is correct, then our bride is the first woman he ever dated.

Now, a girl did come up with her friend's name, saying her friend went out with the groom briefly. And guess what her answer was when I asked if I could meet the girl? The girl went missing, around the same time she was supposedly going out with him. Any information I am digging out seems to paint a very bleak picture of the dude. No one knows what happened to the girl, and when I went to police, their answer was that she just vanished from her room.

That also brings me to another issue. The college that the groom went to, and the high-school, the areas surrounding reported an unusual spike in missing people when he was there, mostly teenagers for the high-school area and the young adults in the college. I found 3 students from his class who went missing around that time in the school, 2 college students from his time in college. Now I am not implying anything, but the spike went down after he left those areas, indicating something at least.

Which brings me to the last part? His middle school. Again, the reports state he was a good student, well-liked and well behaved but when I went around asking the teachers and the students about him, no answer came. No one knew him, no one remembered anybody with his name or his description. The teachers didn't even know. Well, for an A grade student, the fact that no one remembers is suspicious. And to add to that, no photo of him in any of middle-school activities. None even in the end of the year group photos. So I dug deeper.

The groom was supposed to have been born in India, in New Delhi. I asked Sinha to also check the hospital where he was born and see what records he could find. After that I waited, even though I had more than enough info to give the father of the bride. There is something to this mystery here that chills my heart and I in good conscience can't leave it unturned.

Well, Sinha got back to me the morning of the writing of this letter. His email stated that the groom's birth certificate were at the hospital, all signed and everything but the hospital in question is under investigation for providing false birth certificate. So that certificate can no longer be hold valid.

His answer, however, to the tracing of the family brought the most confusion to me. The father married the mother through a hurried arranged marriage. The mother committed suicide on the first month after the wedding. She was pregnant at the time of her death but apparently the boy survived. Now the dates didn't add up, so people obviously pointed fingers at the lady, saying she must have gotten pregnant out of wedlock. The father took the boy and set out for America within a couple of days of the child being born, much to the chagrin of the unfortunate mum's family. One curious fact that Sinha mentioned was that no one in the family had seen the child. That fact was corroborated by the brother.

The father of the groom was old, at least guessed to be 65, yet he looked no older than 30 at the time of the wedding. I got the photos sent to me by Sinha and I would attest that too, the man didn't look older than 30.

Now, the groom's grandfather used to live in Kolkata, where he became rich through several herbal stores. The old man was liked and loved but folks soon came to question why he didn't age. Nobody really bothered until his 70th birthday came and the man didn't look past 30. Add to that a couple of mysterious cases of young girls going missing in that month, folks started being suspicious of the old medicine man. He ran away on a certain night, to New-Delhi, where his wife lived with her son. That much was gathered because the herbal stores still remain there to this day and store manager is a chatty man.

No one can find any information regarding the groom's grandmother, which is odd but not in this case, as we being to see a pattern. As I said, Sinha was able to find traces up to the fourth generation. His great-grandfather was Parsi, and came from the northmost region of the lands, through the Kabuli mountains. Again, no records of any woman accompanying him, or to that effect neither any children. The great- grandfather lived in then Bombay for a long time, until the same questions started appearing for him as well. The man's age grew but he never did.

All these facts point to something macabre, of an eerie origin that goes beyond my understanding as I am a God-fearing man. Thankful to me that my part in this business has come to an end, as I gave the info to the bride's father and he took drastic action to remedy the situation. That wedding will no longer take place, but a wedding will. Her daughter is going to marry his friend's son, an Army major. It will take place in New Delhi and should bode well to the family.

However, the mysterious man who was the groom has now threatened the family and said that he will marry the girl no matter what, and there is nothing anyone can do. That is why I have contacted you, knowing what we know, you are the only man who can do something about this dangerous affair.

Please contact me as soon as you can, I have put my number below.

Your friend,

Arabi Khalique