12.28.07: For those of you who do not read comments and may not know this– there is evidence which indicates that Anu is alive:
Authorities from the Cook County Sheriff’s Department announced they believe Solanki has left the Chicago area with a friend of hers, and that she has gone willingly. [oh, snap]
Developing…
I know we’re still shocked about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, but there’s a story about another South Asian woman which deserves attention, in case any of you can help.
We’ve received several tips about a young woman who currently lives in Chicago, who has disappeared under what I think are extra-tragic circumstances. Anu Solanki is 24 years old and a newlywed from Virginia. The last time she was seen was when she was leaving her job at a hotel gift shop, on Monday, the 24th. A few miles from there…
Her car — which was still running with its doors unlocked– was found in a forest preserve parking lot late Monday afternoon.
Forest preserve police used divers to search the river in the Wheeling Forest Preserve on Wednesday, but said they would stay inside the boats on Thursday. [abc7chicago]
This is what makes my heart ache, why I wrote that this story had an extra element of tragedy:
Solanki’s husband said his wife may have gone to the river to place a broken statue of the Hindu deity Ganesh in the water, as they were told to do by a priest, to prevent bad luck. Authorities fear the woman slipped while placing the statue in the current. [abc7chicago]
“There is some concern at this point that this is a rapid current of the Des Plaines River, that it may be wise to check even further,” said Cook County Forest Preserve District spokesman Steve Mayberry. “Miss Solanki is a petite woman, and in fact, the current may have carried her further than initially believed.” [WBBM780]
Who among us hasn’t tried to do the “right” thing, on the advice of someone we trust, even if it seems superstitious? I’m just haunted by the mental picture I have of this girl earnestly, gingerly transporting this broken-but-sacred statue, on her way to the river.
While her slipping and falling while trying to do something respectful is awful enough, there’s the possibility of worse:
Police are checking the validity of a report that Solanki called a relative and said she was being watched, but then called back minutes later to say she was fine. [abc7chicago]
That report says she called a relative, this says she called a friend:
Dignesh Solanki says his wife spoke with a friend by cell phone that afternoon, telling her she was being followed by four men, then called back to say the men had disappeared. [WBBM780]
I hope she will be found soon. Chicago mutineers Neeraj and M, thank you for keeping us posted about this.
Seahawks fan, thank you so much for the link.
I think we should all chill with the judgment since this case is confusing and few facts are known at this time– at least she’s alive, right? If she caused law enforcement to waste time and resources, then she should answer for that later, when we know what really happened. I understand the frustration, especially of those of you who wrote to us out of extreme concern for her, but right now, none of us knows what’s going on.
96 and #98 — very informative comments. The photo in # 98 matches the album of the guy being referred to in #96.
I know some people will again protest against this “slander” as being not PC, but his(jani guy’s) profile did seem kind of lame to me. His buddy’s “testimonial” for him reads something like this:
(~||~)
The best explanation I could think of is that the female is just incredibly dumb… something like one of those dumb blonde stereotypes. I guess she had some kind of an online relationship with this guy and then they decided to meet and she probably just thought she could hang out with him for a few days and get back and weave up a story of kidnap or something…(?)
Karan Jani was in my class at USC, he is from Ahmedabad, he was a intelligent and quite guy, I am surprised seeing his photos in the paper.
alpha, you have been so right before, so it’s only natural for you to keep playing when you are winning!
I am glad other people’s lives are such wonderful theater for you, hopefully you will be able to return the favor one day.
Of course I was right. I never CLAIMED her husband killed her. I said MAYBE. POSSIBLY. MAYBE. And it still seems a reasonable line of thought to me given the information back then. If you think one should not talk about it, by all means please don’t and stfu on claiming that I am somehow the villain here.
Anyways, I know its a bit of a subtle call, but I personally disagree with you on your opinion that what I said was particularly insensitive given the facts. I didn’t say anything irrational or misrepresent facts or float around lies as fact. I put forth a proposal or a “theory”, if you know what that means. The person who reads it has a brain and can decide how much of a probability to assign to that theory. I hope you will stop being unnecessarily being pissed at me and live in peace.
Cheers, -Alphabeta.
Thanks for the laugh!
I guess the rabble-rousing Greta Van Susterens and Nancy Graces of the world wouldn’t be around and successful if there weren’t enough knuckle dragging dregs who believed that the scum they dredge up is a worthwhile service to society.
ok, I do share your hate for who I think are Fox TV conservative reporters and their supporters – the “knuckle dragging dregs” (?)
I didn’t pick these two reporters for their conservative leanings, but for the often baseless accusations they so casually throw around without paying any heed to the damage it may actually cause to the people involved.
Rahul, stop being so judgemental about alphabeta! :=)
Yeah, yeah, but didn’t you know of the anti-catch 22 clause on being judgmental – the only thing you are allowed to be judgmental on is being judgmental.
But seriously, this behavior is more like muck raking. And the stench of casual statements thrown around in “brainstorming” hang around for ever, and are increasingly easily found on the Internet. I’m sure you’ll agree since you intimately know a certain commenter who wanted to avoid relatively minor embarrassment by being so careful as to misspell his own name so that his comments that were not entirely flattering about a politician who was a friend of a very distant part of his family couldn’t be found by the long arm of Google.
Being judgmental about certain actions is certainly reasonable, but speculations (if you don’t want to call it anything stronger) about people being murderers, abusers, or controlling with absolutely no basis at all in fact is not. We dislike our own acquaintances when they indulge in far less than this level of speculation about people we love.
Don’t worry:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071229/ap_on_re_us/missing_woman
She’s found, and now may be likely responsible for the $250 K in efforts to find her.
Rahul, are you ok?
Glad Ms. Solanki is safe — hope all turns out well.
How could you cast aspersions on my health like this, Camille? Am I not allowed to moralize for a day? 🙂
Speculate away like it is 1848, people!
Ok, rahul. I do concede it was “insensitive” to have put forth that kind of a speculation. Hardly “irrational” though, as you seem to confuse between the two. big difference. I was putting forth a maximum likelihood estimate without concern for what is at stake, if I was wrong. As you pointed out, this is high. Please do accept my apology.
However, no apologies to anu solanki; I rather seriously hope that she and/or the jani guy get fined for wasting 250K of taxpayer money.
No worries, alphabeta. Sorry if I came off too strongly, this kind of behavior is a pet peeve of mine. Anyways, this horse has now been flogged to its death and gnawed to the bone by a hungry tiger.
(Just curious as to why you felt I considered it irrational, I said unreasonable but I meant it in the “inappropriate” sense).
Like my gamma used to say, this is nothing nu. It’s enough to make you psi.
Alpha beta, I speculate that you are maybe possibly maybe an idiot. (Just speculating, don’t get all offended now.) Ah knew all along that Anu had eloped because there is no shortage of Anus in the world. I’ll tell you a story.
When I was a kid way back in the 80s, a young woman who went to our gurudwara didn’t come home from work one night. Her car was found the next day on a side-street near her work with a busted window. The whole community galvanized behind her family. Her father made tearful public requests for money to hire private detectives to find her. All kinds of rumors and stories were floated about what may possibly have been done to her that are still seared in my imagination. This went on for months. She was given up for lost. Then, she resurfaced. She had eloped. (She reconciled with her family a few years later.)
So I’m not saying that I’m clairvoyant, I’m just saying that I’m really smart. We live in a f-ed up world. It’s no wonder people do f-ed up things. This Anu may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I am sure she had her complicated reasons for her complicated plan. I had a (how do you say “correct?”) theory about this case all along, but I didn’t think it was appropriate to publicly speculate just so that now–as I sit here smug and vindicated–I could have some proof to rub in your face as I said “I told you so.”
You posted your speculative comment with no regard for possible ramifications. And now you continue to slander. (First the husband, now the boyfriend, or is it the boyfriend’s friend you’re making fun of? Anyway, it is clear that you are much cooler than them.) You judge him for being a loser based on his FaceBook profile? Man, you’re a loser for digging up his FaceBook profile.
Naw, it ain’t PC.
Signed,
The Mack
83 · Pravin said
What they did was irresponsible and self-centered, but is this the best “punishment” we can imagine? How about making them go around to high schools talking to kids about more responsible ways to resolve these conflicts. Why does it always have to be about money?
Unless you live in Cook County, I suspect you’re more indignant about having been duped (unlike me, see comment #116) than you are about your tax dollars being wasted. And if it’s “tax dollars” you’re so worked up about, man, there’s much bigger instances of corporate welfare, cronyism, and tax-waste that we can talk about. Much bigger.
She’s hot
So what’s common between Harrison Ford’s Fugitive and Anu Solanki case? Other than happening in Cook County, nothing else 🙂
I think this is a case of young and dumb infatuation.
Jani seems to me like a good looking guy and Anu was deeply infatuated with her. Nothing wrong about her husband Mr. Solanki has come to light yet so being speculative, I will state that it is all Anu’s fault.
I am a married guy from India and located here in Chicago. I will not want my wife to ever run away like this. I think we have excellent law to protect both parties and she could have gone away and have a divorce attorney send the papers and call him. She has presently demeaned herself and has caused enough headaches to her family. She has also caused her husband to be ripped apart by the media and the blogs.
Additionally, when all the states are hurting for revenue, this unplanned copy of ‘Sleeping with the enemy’ costed us taxpayers. I think some of you who mentioned fines are right. Until we are forced to pay a price for our mistakes, it does not teach others a lesson.
Finally, the question we all have to ask ourselves. Does our culture, values and beliefs teaches us to do what happened here? Would we ever want this to happen in our lives? If not, lets hope that Anu, Karan and Dignesh get out of this mess peacefully. After all life is a paradise (no pun intended) and let’s enjoy our day.
To #116.
Of course I already accepted that my comment was “insensitive” and apologized clearly. What exactly is the point of your super emotional sounding essay given this fact?
Sure, I’m not stupid enough to take an issue with that. But you must realize that in spite of your “real smartness”, you somehow paradoxically are a bunch of contradictions. First you say
which blatantly contradicts what you say later:
In contrast, I, the one who you take so much offence with for “slandering”, never even went so far to insinuate that she was irresponsible or depraved in any way. I nevertheless used “stupid” unreservedly because it seemed trivial to me that trying to fool authorities into thinking you are dead would never work. If it doesn’t sound stupid to you, well… i guess people just think “differently”.
I said it sort of looked lame to me… If you disagree, thats good. And I didn’t exactly “dig it out”. I was just verifying something someone else already pointed out and happened to make a casual observation. I just don’t get why you’re so pissed.
btw, Harbeer: I was also wondering if you could explain why you thought me calling a (lame orkut profile)/(stupid act) as lame/stupid respectively is apparently considered such vicious slander with “ramifications” while your casual remark that they were “irresponsible and self centered” is not slander(?). I at least made observations on specific acts/events and not the person as a whole. On the contrary, me thinks you did exactly that – “slander”
hey all,
harb, rahul, nice to see you guys in good form.
It took a 1st-gen party (i.e. uncles and aunties congregation) and a chance encounter with a former student of my mother to jolt my memory. This Anu went to my highschool and actually graduated with me. Due in no small part to her involvement in ESL, and my own insistence on shouting random Brecht-on-Brecht lines throughout the day, I hardly knew her (but didn’t forget the face). Obviously back then she didn’t share a last name with greatest accessorizer of our generation. I do hope that she’s playing it safe. Pulling on the heartstrings of old/new family is no joke, however, and the humor we’re squeezing out of this situation might be prove to be almost as crass than Hitchen’s line about children’s bottoms in God Is Not Great.
than = as
i must speculate that i’m losing what little ability to string together a coherent sentence. AlphaBeta, you’re on the case! I hear the culprits might be located in Santa’s workshop.
http://www.wthitv.com/Global/story.asp?S=7554878
AP is reporting that she’s back and safe.
http://www.southtownstar.com/news/718111,122907missingwomanupdate.article
a more local paper is reporting the same, but pegging the search costs at an unbelievable $250 million. AB–could her husband/boyfriend/grand vizier have possibly killed her, cloned a copy from a hair sample, and then flew back home on a flying carpet before the authorities could catch up?
Question: Is anyone still “haunted by the mental picture of this girl earnestly, gingerly transporting this broken-but-sacred statue, on her way to the river.?”
Ha ha ha ha!!!! What drama, what melodrama! Concoctions of these kind of emotional, tearjerking stories have been used to pass gender-biased domestic violence laws and convict innocent men. http://www.498a.org
Thank God the young woman is safe. But I wish she had done this in a way that caused less pain to her family.
damn. have the police considered certain cost-saving methods? perhaps they shoud have left this to the SM sleuths to build up more solid leads before expending their valuable resources….
I think it’s supposed to be $250K.
Whatever you may have been through, it does NOT give you the right to be such a dick to other people. You cherry-pick a line from this post, disingenuously ignoring when it was written just to push your agenda? Calling a sincere reaction to a potential tragedy a “concoction” is just as rude as dismissing an entire aspect of DV. What you are so offended by wasn’t going to convict anyone and if someone was moved by that religious aspect of this story (and many were), that has nothing to do with whatever your problem is. It’s an obnoxious element for you to attack and wins no sympathy for your “side”.
I was just looking out for your blood pressure — it seemed like it was getting a little high 😉 No, you are definitely allowed to moralize; it certainly made me think/reframe my thoughts, so I appreciate it. Come on Rahul, you would have to post something really insane before I start casting aspersions 🙂
Hey guys, I think it’s time to lay off alphabeta (although I am enjoying the conspiracy theories, albeit at beta’s expense). There was some hasty commentary, some sharp correction, and an apology. We don’t need to keep it going, esp. if AB here is a new commentator learning the SM ropes. The moral of the story is that the internet is forever, so don’t a) make assertions without evidence, and b) don’t be a jerk. Let’s move on and play nice 🙂
Rahul: Want to commend you for sticking to your point and not give in. To be clear,your arguments above made sense to me.
130 · Camille said
Ropes? I’ve been commenting for like a year, I’m just now finding out about the ropes? What else haven’t you told me?
Hi Murali.
This was my initial question.
As someone commented above, her parents were very strict regarding dating and associating with members of the opposite gender. Actually, she was not allowed to. I would then assume that divorce would not fit within their ideas of proper behaviour for a daughter as well. There is definetly a cultural angle to this.
hmmm… 250k $ for the search seems too much! All they had to do was trace a few cellphone calls, maybe check a few university records. I just don’t understand Americans. It costs them 100,000$ to install a toilet seat.
Arjun,
Just because you can’t wrap your mind around the costs of mounting a first world search and rescue mission, doesn’t mean you should question them.
Muralimannered…
Huh? Language casteism or what yaar?
134 · Arjun said
Given the dollar/rupee ratio these days, $250K is not much these days.
Amreekan with Ayercondeeshan, you come to Delhi and we will show you how to run a police department….LoL
Maybe for your ass, it does.
I just don’t understand liars, fabricators and delusionists, like Arjun.
the 250,000 cost is probably the cost of the divers searching for her in the freezing waters of the river on xmas day. she is now talking to police and saying she wasnt happy in her marriage. it was extremely devious of her to make that phone call saying she was being followed and then leave her car running by the river– driving her family and friends besides themselves with worry. she should be held accountable for her behavior–she is an adult and should have paused to think about the consequences of her actions.
It may be that she was simply unhappy in her marriage and thus should have just left in an honest way. Is there also a possibility that she could have been a victim of abuse who could see no other way out than staging her own death? How about the psychological pressures that family members (especially desi ones) put on wives to “adjust” and stay within the confines of horrible marriages? These issues have been discussed on here before. As portrayed in the film “Provoked”, some desi women really see no other way out so they take extreme measures.
Before we make any judgements either way, we would need to know the circumstances under which Anu was living.
Well put Gazsi.
Glad to hear she’s ok. Pissed that she was so reckless. What was she thinking is beyond me.
hummm….
These kind of girls make husbands look bad. Also, if this would have happened in India, whole extended family of husband would have landed in jail without bail. What to know the ugly reality type ‘498a’ on google.
Just visit http://www.498a.org
Forgot to add the link
Just visit http://www.498a.org I visited it couple of months back and the situation looks quite pathetic.
C’mon guys, surely we can criticize her without revealing our inner misogynists. Welcome to the 21st century, where it’s all about the subtlety with which we can denigrate.
I doubt it. Now that the ‘jig is up’ so to speak, you would think she would come clean about any abuse. Battered wife syndrome also typically exhibits itself not by running off with another man, but by physical retaliation toward the abuser. Also, can we please not extrapolate one woman’s story to all desi stories? I suspect there is probably some regional/cultural variation anyway; I don’t think Anu is Punjabi. I know a few women who had abusive/asshole husbands who got divorces, and a few who filed for divorce because they were really unhappy, and my parents and their friends don’t look down on them for it. But they probably would have if the women had instead faked their own disappearances and deaths.
that sounds interesting… which conspiracy theories are you referring to btw?!?
Its good that you learnt those unintended morals too, Camille. I’m sure they would help 🙂 But let me point out to you what was actually logically meant to be learnt: don’t be “insensitive” to the subject even if you do make sense (when you are posting online on a site like this)
well for one, I had no clue there was piss match going on here to win or lose. To be clear, I only agreed with rahul about me being insensitive. I never agreed to those claims about me floating “speculation without evidence” or “assertions without reason” crap. I somehow get the feeling of some of you(not rahul) being in a very similar ilk as this dude talking to dawkins is as far as reasoning and snide insinuation goes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnX87-X27Uo (warning: it might take a bit of sophistication to see the analogy I’m referring to)
Cheers, -Alpha
Maybe she led a very sheltered life and truly felt that she could not speak to anyone about her situation and just wanted out.
There are times that I have lied to family members and loved ones simply because I did not want the hassle, drama, heartbreak and rejection that would ensue if I were to open up to them regarding taboos which they held which I was a part of. And I have not even led a sheltered life.
We really need to get into the mind and psyche of Anu first before judging her.
And pretending you’re dead, causing the police to waste thousands of dollars, and causing a great deal of grief to your family is somehow supposed to spare you from feeling hassle, drama, heartbreak, and rejection?
How is anyone supposed to trust her after something like this? Part of me pities Anu, because what’s the likelihood of her friends and family trusting her again?
Anyone else feel like calling her a prostitute or bitch? I’ll ban you, too. Take your abusive language elsewhere. There is a way to express your anger or frustration which doesn’t involve calling this obviously troubled woman such things.
Also, stop spamming the 498/dowry protection link. It’s off-topic. I’ll let your comments stand, if people want to visit that site, they will. Next person who posts that link will be deleted.
Neale,
I barely had the social skills to navigate my way through classes in which no speaking was required. It probably wasn’t the english/ESL divide that did the trick.