MovieChat Forums > Talvar (2015) Discussion > What is the REAL story (SPOILERS)?

What is the REAL story (SPOILERS)?


I am not from India, did not know about this case, and still know nothing about it.

I have a few questions:


1. The fourth guy, that saw what happened, was going to testify but was not allowed to, who was he? Did he live in the house too?

2. were the parents actually sent to jail? Lifetime sentences?

3. I don't think the parents did it, I am sure the friends of the servant did it.

But ... who knows? Anyway, what is the common sense about the case in India?
What is the real story?

4. Is the "narco test" really allowed by law?

5. If it is, how come it is not allowed in court? What is the point then?

6. I believe there are some racial (and/or religion) issues here, please tell me which are the ethinics and religion of all involved, and how it complicated the whole thng.

7. Is it common in India to have an "old man" as an "maid"?

8. do maids/servants that live with the family have their room right next door to yours?

9. Finally, what language is actually spoken in India? Do you really mix up English and Hindi that much?

If so, would it be safe to assume that everyone in India is fully fluent in both?

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No one, really?

Not even you Mr manubhatt3 ?

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My answers can be lengthy so please bear with me.

1. The fourth guy, that saw what happened, was going to testify but was not allowed to, who was he? Did he live in the house too?

He was a servant in the Tondon (originally Talwar) family's neighbor's house. The servants, drivers are casual friends & familiar with each other.

2. were the parents actually sent to jail? Lifetime sentences?

Yes, they were convicted for life sentence and their appeal is pending in Supreme court (not sure presently).

3. I don't think the parents did it, I am sure the friends of the servant did it.

But ... who knows? Anyway, what is the common sense about the case in India?
What is the real story?


In India, for children to perform sexual acts with a person of lower class or lower caste is considered as shame to the family. In many cases, the parents along with elder sibling of the person who has had sex/affair kill them in order to save their family from being shamed in front of the society. Society has higher value than a person's personal interest. In this case it is easy for the people and the media to automatically take the parents as murderers because the girl was a teen and the servant who was murdered was 45 years old. If the affair between them (if it was the case) came to public, the family would have faced a lot of discrimination from the society. The parents were dentists too, that is a medically advantage because a common man (also the CBI) would think that they could have easily wiped out the evidence which could lead them to jail. So it's all general speculation. Nobody knows for sure who murdered those 2 people. Except the murderers because there was no witness.

4. Is the "narco test" really allowed by law?

it's more like a lie detection test. As far as I know, yes it is allowed but there are some permissions to be taken from court/magistrates.

5. If it is, how come it is not allowed in court? What is the point then?

It is not allowed in court as evidence because it is not a concrete science and variable on different factors.

6. I believe there are some racial (and/or religion) issues here, please tell me which are the ethinics and religion of all involved, and how it complicated the whole thing.

No, that's not the issue. It's the social pride. The parents were dentists. A doctor in India has high social value than a person who is a storekeeper or a clerk or a farmer. If the parents killed them, the sole reason would be the sexual relation between the girl and the servant. As I said before, this could have hampered their prestige in the society if the relation between the girl and servant went public after some days (You know like pregnancy sort of stuff).

7. Is it common in India to have an "old man" as an "maid"?

It's perfectly normal. Many have old men as their servants in home for decades. I mean the servant spends his whole life in their house being loyal.

8. do maids/servants that live with the family have their room right next door to yours?

Only high class people who earn a high amount of money can afford to spare a room for the servants. Middle class people don't keep (can't afford) servants, and if they do - the servants are only part timers and don't stay in the house.

9. Finally, what language is actually spoken in India? Do you really mix up English and Hindi that much?

In India, there are many languages (nearly 400) spoken. Since the incident occurred in Noida, Delhi - it's Hindi language there and Bollywood which is the movie industry of North India, also produces movies in Hindi. The English mixup you see is the new trend bollywood movie makers inject into the script to show off as smart ass people. Also Indian youth (who claim to be smart asses around without knowing anything) are generally Engineering & Management students who are taught to speak English instead of their mother tongue because their university culture teaches them and brain washes them to think that speaking English makes them smart & intelligent while the fact is that makes them look like utterly disgusting fools.

But officially English is common to be written.

You can read more about the case - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Noida_double_murder_case

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I disagree about the explanation for some points mentioned above, it seems to me that the poster is not from India but simultaneously pretending to be an expert on her, making himself look more like an idiot:-


But ... who knows? Anyway, what is the common sense about the case in India?
What is the real story?

In India, for children to perform sexual acts with a person of lower class or lower caste is considered as shame to the family. In many cases, the parents along with elder sibling of the person who has had sex/affair kill them in order to save their family from being shamed in front of the society. Society has higher value than a person's personal interest. In this case it is easy for the people and the media to automatically take the parents as murderers because the girl was a teen and the servant who was murdered was 45 years old. If the affair between them (if it was the case) came to public, the family would have faced a lot of discrimination from the society. The parents were dentists too, that is a medically advantage because a common man (also the CBI) would think that they could have easily wiped out the evidence which could lead them to jail. So it's all general speculation. Nobody knows for sure who murdered those 2 people. Except the murderers because there was no witness.


This is somewhat true, but more so in villages, especially in north western India. Poster has generalized this conveniently to make his point. Worthy to add here that India is a very vast country with enormous diversity, so one has to generally be very cautious while making any sort of generalizations.

I will say that to expect this from a upper middle class family in Noida is totally far-fetched, and this is exactly the reason why this case got so much publicity. But its an important point because it still gives the police a possible motive/theory(no matter how improbable) of murder - otherwise why will a parent would kill his/her own child?


The English mixup you see is the new trend bollywood movie makers inject into the script to show off as smart ass people. Also Indian youth (who claim to be smart asses around without knowing anything) are generally Engineering & Management students who are taught to speak English instead of their mother tongue because their university culture teaches them and brain washes them to think that speaking English makes them smart & intelligent while the fact is that makes them look like utterly disgusting fools.


Really?!? The English mix-up is not a trend of Bollywood, but its a reality of modern India. A good example I can give you, is from my own life.
I learned the Hindi translations of 'right' and 'left' many years ago, just because rickshaw drivers in India didn't understood English and understood Hindi(its not that I didn't knew the words, but I frequently got confused and mixed them up). I made it a habit of speaking 'dayen' and 'bayen'. A few days ago, I was traveling in a auto-rickshaw and used the Hindi words, and to my surprise the driver didn't knew the exact meanings, like what was my situation in the past and preferred English. I wondered with amusement that how things have changed.

English has become so much important due to a variety of inter-related complicated factors:-

First, obviously because its a colonial hangover. I will attribute considerable part of the reason why English has become a class/social level marker/indicator in India, to this!

Second, only above reason is not enough! This affect shud have slowly waned out, but it didn't! Here globalization and the fact that India doesn't have one common language comes into play.

Globalization or the rising services sector in India in the 90s(its still rising bdw), which mainly catered to developed countries made English nearly a practical necessity in India. And since now everyone had to learn English, this meant that most people in Non-Hindi speaking regions made English their second learning choice instead of Hindi. This also meant that even in the national space, Hindi had a strong competitor in English, which in turn made English even more important!

Not having a common language also meant that after independence English was maintained as an official language, in part, to serve as the link language between different language speaking regions. It was and is still heavily used in government, administrative, legal and financial sectors.

What poster has mentioned about people speaking English to make impression, has somewhat truth in it. And it happens because of, as I mentioned above, the colonial mindset and also the fact that generally an educated or a person from a higher social ladder would have much better English skills. Although this isn't a rule, but its sufficient to develop into a stereotype(and this phenomenon of developing stereotypes is common to humanity and definitely not unique to India!)

I will say that people try to speak in English even when they know that the other person knows local language, only because of two reasons: First, they know English well and have a show-off mentality/attitude. Second, they don't know English well and are trying to desperately prove to themselves and the world otherwise, at the cost of the quality of communication - and all this because they place so much importance/value to English speaking in a wrong way!

But regarding a mix-up of English and Hindi - its fairly common. I mean, its difficult to find a person who knows pure Hindi! I also don't know or have forgotten the Hindi translations of many words - and there is nothing intrinsically bad about it. This the way languages have developed and evolved throughout history! This only reflects the growing sphere of English in everyday life of a common man. You can say that Hinglish(Hindi with a mix of English words/phrases) and other local language versions of the same, is the new language of the modern India.

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