Roundup: Updates on Anu Solanki

Time for more details about Anu Solanki, the young woman who freaked out thousands of us, when we feared the worst had happened to her, while she was actually absconding with a platonic friend. She’s getting off lucky…for now:

Cook County authorities will not bring criminal charges against Anu Solanki, the Des Plaines-area woman who disappeared from Cook County forest preserve property last week, officials said Monday…
“Between us and the sheriff’s [office], we’ve agreed there aren’t appropriate criminal charges in the case,” said First Assistant State’s Attorney Robery Milan. [Sun Times]

She did not file a false police report. That is why she is off the hook.

In case you forgot the particulars, Anu Solanki disappeared after leaving work to immerse a statue of Ganapati in a river with a very powerful current. They found her car running, with no sign of her. This inspired a frantic search for her, which included divers:

The four-day search for Solanki involved several police departments. Chief Richard Waszak of the Cook County Forest Preserves said they had a minimum of 40 people working around the clock during the investigation.
The cost of the search was estimated conservatively at $250,000, Waszak said. [WBBM]

The possibility of suing Solanki to reclaim wasted money is still on the table; we’ll try to keep you posted. Now that the actual news is out of the way, let’s hear about the other person in her marriage: Dignesh, her humiliated husband.

A man whose wife seemingly vanished near a suburban Chicago river only to be found days later with another man across the country said he noticed romantic text messages he didn’t send on his wife’s cell phone two days after they were married a little more than a year ago.
But the man, Dignesh Solanki, said he believed his wife, 24-year-old Anu Solanki, would be faithful to him.
“I gave her a chance because she promised me she would be 100 percent faithful,” Solanki told the Chicago Sun-Times. “I completely trusted her. I would never have run away with another girl. I would have tried to work it out.”…[AP]

Note, he’s not vindictive (I think some of us would indulge our lesser impulses if we were in his place, “i.e. hell yeah, press charges!”)

Solanki’s husband, Dignesh Solanki, said Monday he was satisfied with the decision not to pursue charges against his wife.
“That’s fine,” Solanki said. “She just left. This is not a crime.” [Sun Times]

Anu Solanki maintains that it was never her intent to deceive people, and one article described her as being “embarrassed” by what she ended up causing.

Anu Solanki told authorities she never meant for people to think she’d drowned and simply wanted a clean break from her husband. She said she was not a victim of abuse, but regretted the marriage. She also apologized. [WTOP]

How is leaving a car running “a clean break”? And even if you regret your marriage and don’t care about worrying the spouse you turned in to a chump, why would you put your family through this nightmare? Look how nice they are:

Saturday, Solanki’s older brother Dhiren Patel wouldn’t say if his sister explained why she decided to leave without telling her husband or family.
Patel thanked authorities for working round the clock to try to find his sister when it wasn’t clear what had happened and he said he’ll be working now to try and lift his sister from the troubled place that caused her to cause so much heartache. [WBBM]
Dignesh Solanki said he spoke to members of Anu’s family, who “did say what happened was wrong.”[Sun Times]

Well, at least her family isn’t blindly defending her actions. What about Karan Jani, the platonic friend who rescued Anu Solanki from her marriage (and Illinois)?

Police say Jani and Solanki had met about a year earlier and had been corresponding on the phone and Internet ever since. But Solanki’s husband didn’t know of his wife’s contact with Jani.
Solanki’s husband spoke out on Monday, saying he was worried sick when his wife disappeared one week ago. Now, he only wants to ask her “why?”
“If she really wants to be with that guy why did she come into my life?” Solanki said…
Dignesh Solanki says he’s happy his wife is safe, but bitter over the pain she caused by fleeing with another man, Karan Jani, to California. [WBBM]

I can’t imagine how bitter, after everything he’d been through to marry her. He was commuting to Virginia, to “court” her on a grocery store clerk’s salary. Her family initially didn’t approve of him, but once Anu’s mother relented, their wedding was scheduled for May.

Their eight months of married life were not entirely blissful, he said: There was typical domestic tension over finances and housekeeping.
Still, Dignesh Solanki said he was in love. They traveled to Las Vegas, the Wisconsin Dells and the Indiana Dunes together this year. “I took her so many places, and we had a real good time,” he said. Solanki said he does not know what will happen to their marriage, but “I have to go on with my own life.”
“If she had to run away, she could have told me she needed a break from me,” he added. “The cops have spent all this time and money. I don’t know why she did this.” [SunTimes]
Dignesh Solanki told the Sun-Times he expects Jani to face God’s punishment.
“She was talking to him before, even six months before we got married,” Solanki said. “So I don’t know why she used me and for what purpose.” [WBBM]

As for what the future holds…

Solanki has not spoken with his wife since she returned to Chicago late Friday to meet with police, he said, adding that he has not decided whether he will file for divorce. [SunTimes]

197 thoughts on “Roundup: Updates on Anu Solanki

  1. wow. depending on where you stand he’s either a p*ssy or more of a man than most would have expected 😉

  2. He should definitely get a divorce. This girl sounds confused.

    that’s the rational thing to do. but sounds like he’s still in love kinda. hopefully that’ll wear off.

  3. digesh seems an awful decent guy – too good for solanki who seems to be something of a witch – and this jani guy is either a tool or a skunk.

  4. digesh seems an awful decent guy – too good for solanki who seems to be something of a witch – and this jani guy is either a tool or a skunk.

    the first i think is a likely inference based on his reaction. that beings said, do we know enough about the full dynamics to be very certain of the latter assumptions? from what we know that’s a defensible claim; but brown american women are often subject to particular pressures which can mitigate erratic behavior (i.e., the expectations of society and the expectations of family, the norms they imbibe from the mainstream culture and the norms which they are held to within the subculture). though the people are brown, the particulars aren’t really necessarily culturally specific.

  5. On the bright side, this story is an exception to tropes of desi women being innocent victims being pressured into unwanted marriages and desi men being misogynistic pigs who treat women like property. If anything, Dignesh is going too easy on his wife.

  6. This was actually a dreadful misunderstanding. She wanted to play a prank on her husband, who would of course call her up when the car was found.

    Dignesh: Anu, we found your car. It is running in the woods. Anu: Why don’t you catch it then?


    What are you groaning at me for? She’s the one with the maturity of an infant.

    Also, judging from the fact that Anu Solanki’s initials are AS, we may conclude that she habitually tells only two-thirds of the truth.

  7. Also, judging from the fact that Anu Solanki’s initials are AS, we may conclude that she habitually tells only two-thirds of the truth.

    Huh?

  8. this whole story is ridiculous. but personally, i think dignesh should count his blessings he is off the hook. if the county had pressed charges to reclaim the quarter million dollars, my bet is that he would have been in jail as an abuser by now.

  9. 8 · nala said

    Huh?

    Oy vey! That was a passing mention to a very old joke (search the page for “two-thirds of the truth”).


    Some comments on the arsonist murderer thread were talking about the need to spread awareness about therapy & mental health. I suppose that stuff could be used here too, giving advice to extremely confused people about what they should do. Sort of like a suicide prevention line, but at a much lower priority. At the very least, it would prevent people doing fully-assed things like running away without any warning.

  10. First, Dignesh’s comments prove nothing. Plenty of people who are rotten in private life know how to put up a gentle, even a martyred front for outsiders. Second, Anu’s comment that the marriage wasn’t abusive proves nothing. The abuse might have been verbal or emotional, and she simply is unaware, as are many abused women, that she HAS been abused. There was clearly friction, as Dignesh himself acknowledges. It is also possible that Dignesh is entirely blameless and Anu is a bleeding idiot. We don’t know and probably never will. What is truly appalling here is the misogynistic rush to judgment of so many commenters, who wish to label her crazy, a ‘witch’, etc.

  11. In case you forgot the particulars, Anu Solanki disappeared after leaving work to immerse a statue of Ganipati in a river

    That’s Ganpati or Ganapati.

    the Des Plaines-area woman

    Desh Plaines!

    Thanks for the update.

    Her family initially didn’t approve of him, but once Anu’s mother relented, their wedding was scheduled for May.

    Rs. 2,000 was betted that this was the case.

  12. The abuse might have been verbal or emotional, and she simply is unaware,

    Absolutely, in fact the abuse might even be at the sub-atomic level. According to the feynman diagrams, the abusive koans emanating from dignesh’s body might decay into the W bosons and gluons in mid air and penetrate the skin of her brain interacting with the pi-mesons on her cortical structure, further penetrating into her corpus collosum & anterior cingulate. There’s a very smile but definitely finite non-zero probability that these abusvie subatomic particles that caused her to do what she did.

    It’s the synaptic discharges and sodium channels plus alphasubunits in Dignesh’s brain that will tell the true story, their words mean nothing.

    We don’t know and probably never will.

    Yes. and OJ will keep looking for “the real killer” too.

    There was clearly friction, as Dignesh himself acknowledges.

    This might’ve helped with excessive friction.

  13. DQ, I think a rush to say she was abused is as misbegotten as the rush to say she was drowned in a river, or that she’s a crazy bitch. She never alleged that she was abused, and nor has anyone else. It’s ridiculous to assume that the only reason she ran off with someone else was because she was abused.

    Facts come in at their own pace, and that pace is governed by the media’s attention span in this case. So if the media presents her as drowned in a river, we think, “gosh, poor woman.” And if the media portrays her as a deceitful wife who’s run off with someone she met on the interwebs to go have horny funs in a hotel room, well, most people will probably think, “what a crazy bitch.”

    Anyway, who cares? She’s alive, and she’s being embarassed in the media, which is awesome fun. All’s well that ends well, right?

    So. Now I just gotta wonder what happened to her Ganapati.

  14. What is truly appalling here is the misogynistic rush to judgment of so many commenters, who wish to label her crazy, a ‘witch’, etc.

    what do you know about me to call me a misogynist. i do not recall displaying a blanket hatred for all women on this forum to have you slander me like this. i take strong issue with your comment. Take it back.

    reg. solanki – i was going to respond to razib’s comment anyway to respond befor i saw yours DQ.

    the first i think is a likely inference based on his reaction. that beings said, do we know enough about the full dynamics to be very certain of the latter assumptions? from what we know that’s a defensible claim; but brown american women are often subject to particular pressures which can mitigate erratic behavior (i.e., the expectations of society and the expectations of family, the norms they imbibe from the mainstream culture and the norms which they are held to within the subculture).

    solanki had initiated a relationship six months before the marriage. she and jani planned this out to the extent of the ganapati story. there has never been any statement of abuse before, through or after this incident either by solanki or any of her family. marital tension! heck – even running off with your mate would have been fine. it’s just the deception and the general inconsiderateness that bugs me. it’s wormy to the core. and that guy jani is just a slimy skunk. not for making away with another guy’s wife – but really the underhanded way he did it. and i dont buy the cultural explanation. being brown is no excuse for being a turd. why all this deception?

  15. Anu’s comment that the marriage wasn’t abusive proves nothing. The abuse might have been verbal or emotional, and she simply is unaware, as are many abused women, that she HAS been abused.

    You probably have some personal issues that cloud your common sense on this issue. So let me explain to you what exactly Anu’s comment that the marriage wasn’t abusive proves: that she wasn’t exactly running away from Mr. Dignesh. More precisely, it proves that he isn’t a psycopath. She herself has apologized for the whole fiasco and says she is embarassed.

    Moral: Putting up an super righteous pose about defending an idiot would end up making the defender look like one.

  16. I am just glad she is ok. I was sickened at the thought of something unspeakable happening to her. especially after it was related that she thought she was being followed by four men.

  17. but really the underhanded way he did it

    True. Using God for your deception is real messed up. Hopefully she gets hers.

  18. being brown is no excuse for being a turd.

    On the other hand, being a turd is a perfect excuse for being brown.

    Khoofia, you’ve got a picturesque way with words!

  19. On the bright side, this story is an exception to tropes of desi women being innocent victims being pressured into unwanted marriages and desi men being misogynistic pigs who treat women like property

    What about desi women creating drama, and acting like pigs themselves.

  20. Is it just me, or does this story sound like a twisted Bollywood movie?

    Don’t know about Bollywood, but I predict that this entire episode will prove to be the rejuvenating shot of collagen needed to reinforce a sadly declining rock band. Jani’s got a Gan-esha.

    He jacked a little bitty baby The man has got to be insane They say the spell that he was under the lightning and the thunder knew that someone had to stop the rain

  21. Absolutely, in fact the abuse might even be at the sub-atomic level. .. ..

    That was brilliant HMF. You have a Neurologist’s sense of humor…Are you one?

  22. 14 · HMF said

    Absolutely, in fact the abuse might even be at the sub-atomic level. According to the feynman diagrams, the abusive koans emanating from dignesh’s body might decay into the W bosons and gluons in mid air and penetrate the skin of her brain interacting with the pi-mesons on her cortical structure, further penetrating into her corpus collosum & anterior cingulate. HAHAHA I have to say that I was quite surprised when I read some of the comments on the other thread on this story even after it was revealed that she simply ran off with some guy. How is it that people are so quick to absolve others of personal responsibility? So do we automatically have relaxed expectation of responsible behavior on the basis of gender/race? So what if her actions wasted a lot of money and people’s time? Even in the absence of mitigating factors we can invent fantastic scenarios that justify irresponsible behaviour. And I wondered how liberals still manage to lose the public debate on personal responsibility to a party represented by a guy like Bush.
  23. 22 · Taz said

    Is it just me, or does this story sound like a twisted Bollywood movie?

    Yea. It resembles in bits and parts this boring film Namastey London I saw in India. But like most of our hindi films it has a “happys endings”

  24. Salil – if you actually read my comment you’ll see that I don’t conclude she necessarily WAS abused. I say that the facts as we know them don’t prove ANYTHING. They certainly don’t rule out abuse.

    Khoofia – using the term ‘witch’ for a female about whose personal circumstances you know little, if anything, is a good indication you’re a misogynist – along with the other mullahs on here who’ve been quick to label her with every traditional epithet possible for a rebellious female.

    Alphabeta – the very fact that you assume it must be ‘personal issues’ that lead me to defend Anu proves that you don’t really need information to pass judgment on someone. You just really, really want to pass judgment.

    HMF – you ARE a neurologist’s joke. What procedure it was that screwed you up I can’t say, but you are entitled to one hell of a settlement.

    To any more ignorant, woman-hating a-holes who choose to come on here and heap more abuse on Anu: I stand by my position that she still MAY have been abused. There are women who get beaten to shreds and still maintain that their relationships are normal. There are plenty more women (as any DV counsellor will inform you) who have a hard time identifying when they have been emotionally abused, particularly if they were subject to such abuse as children.

  25. To any more ignorant, woman-hating a-hole

    ie. anyone able to see the facts for what they are.

    What procedure it was that screwed you up I can’t say

    I think it’s called the acquisition of common sense.

    but you are entitled to one hell of a settlement

    Would it cover one of your dinners?

  26. I stand by my position that she still MAY have been abused.

    what kind of stupid position is that? of course she may have been abused, she may have also been captured by aliens and forced to watch the entire 2nd season of ally McBeal.

  27. DQ and nala for all your misoandrist comments i would say that first look at yourself before demeaning others. DQ by your defination of DV 99% people in this world are abused at some point in there life, so much for your ridiculous feminist diatribe, you certainly do have personal issues, same goes to nala before calling other people pigs first know what you are. Now go on and call me misogynist, male chauvinist and any other fad word you like, but the truth is some women are in complete denial they just don’t want to know what is wrong with them.

  28. HMF, given that nearly a third of North American women will be abused during their lifetimes (physical abuse), I’d say the parallel with being kidnapped by aliens is a trifle weak.

    Desi Fury – it’s not being a woman that makes me annoyed at having this individual, about whose inner life, emotional state, and past we know nearly nothing, called denigrating names. I hope not. I would hope there are men out there who would refrain from calling her a bitch, a crazy woman, a witch, an infant etc.

  29. I still think Anu is an immature idiot for running away like this and I honestly feel bad for Dignesh.

  30. i was wrong to have had an emotional response and to have cast a judgement. best thing to let the domestic matter work its way through court and counsellors. moving on.

  31. All right, let’s back off the DQ, shall we? I read her comment and saw in it frustration that I sometimes feel about this space, too. While I don’t necessarily give Anu as much latitude as DQ does– because after reading article after article, I think she’s probably guilty of doing what her heart wanted in the most clueless, expensive way possible– I also think that sometimes, we’re a bit callous about the language we use here, and willfully oblivious of the ramifications of such typing. I know this, because I moderated both threads and had to delete some really filthy, vicious misogynistic comments. I’m good at nuking them after four years, good enough that most of you don’t even see them, so you don’t realize the sentiment is out there and people feel free to shit it here, as if they’re awesome for feeling that way, and won’t everyone think they’re clever for saying “she is a prostitute of a bitch!”?

    I also endorse one other aspect of DQ’s p.o.v.– that we never know what someone else’s entire story is and so it’s gracious to keep in mind that things beyond what we have judged or decided are possible. Maybe Anu was abused. Maybe Anu has a personality disorder. Maybe Anu just wanted a different life but was too scared to suffer through all the painful disentangling to get to it. It’s a kind thing to keep in mind in every situation.

    All I know is, leaving the car running b/c you want a “clean break” with your life and your husband’s property is lame. Lamer still, lying to a probably horrified friend about being in danger/being followed. Lamest of all, not thinking her actions through.

    What I want to know is, did she just think she’d be able to disappear? No one would notice she was gone? Discuss. And play nice while you’re at it.

  32. To any more ignorant, woman-hating a-holes who choose to come on here and heap more abuse on Anu: I stand by my position that she still MAY have been abused. There are women who get beaten to shreds and still maintain that their relationships are normal. There are plenty more women (as any DV counsellor will inform you) who have a hard time identifying when they have been emotionally abused, particularly if they were subject to such abuse as children.

    I, George Walker Bush, stand by my position that Iraq still MAY have WMDs. There are countries that get searched to bits and still have WMDs hidden in somebody’s basement. There are plenty more countries (as any of my administration’s officials will inform you) that we have a hard time deciding whether they have WMDs or not, particularly if the WMDs were invented by foreign heathens.

    Domestic violence is a serious problem.

    You’re hurting your case by making Anu Solanki of all people into a poster child for DV.

    This is an individual who has acted immaturely, inconsiderately and irrationally. There may be hope for her, but calling her a victim of DV is speculative at best. Acting on that speculation is wasteful of resources: every resource spent on Anu Solanki’s potential DV experience (which may not even exist) is not spent on helping known victims of actual (not potential) DV.

  33. ‘Me’ – Uh huh, right. So anyone who says that flinging epithets at this girl is wrong has ‘personal issues’, but those who call her those names are perfectly alright. And we’re the ones in denial.

    What are you basing the 99% stat on? There’s nothing in my comment to indicate such a number. I pointed out that plenty of abused women are not fully aware of what constitutes abuse. And furthermore, there are many who will never publicly declare they’ve been abused, even if they know they have been. She may not have been abused at all, but we know TOO LITTLE to judge her and to decide hubby is an angel.

  34. I rarely am on the same side of the table as HMF on the topic of DV, but I’m totally with him on this — I thought the Feynman particles post was hilarious.

    DQ, you’re right, there is a possibility she was abused, but it is SERIOUSLY unlikely given all the subsequent information we have now. A possibility doesn’t make it a certainty, let alone a prevailing probability. I was loathe to jump on the abuse bandwagon in the previous thread, and that wagon certainly seems to have broken down now. It sounds like she is immature and unclear about what she wants and handled the entire thing REALLY poorly. Let’s not turn her into a victim without reason.

  35. Anna, looks like I posted my comment the same time as you posted yours. Feel free to delete my #41 – when I started typing it, there weren’t too many responses to DQ. Now all the responses together make it look like a Neil LaBute audition.

  36. DQ- I pointed out that plenty of abused women are not fully aware of what constitutes abuse.

    Nor are men.

  37. DQ and nala for all your misoandrist comments i would say that first look at yourself before demeaning others. DQ by your defination of DV 99% people in this world are abused at some point in there life, so much for your ridiculous feminist diatribe, you certainly do have personal issues, same goes to nala before calling other people pigs first know what you are. Now go on and call me misogynist, male chauvinist and any other fad word you like, but the truth is some women are in complete denial they just don’t want to know what is wrong with them.

    Huh? I think you need to improve your reading skills. I was being sarcastic in #6. If anything, I’m a misogynist. 😉 (thanks for the free therapy btw 🙂 )

  38. (thanks for the free therapy btw 🙂 )

    So Nala, now that you’ve had some therapy, I take it you won’t be setting people on fire then?

  39. What I want to know is, did she just think she’d be able to disappear? No one would notice she was gone? Discuss. And play nice while you’re at it.

    She thought she could vanish, simply vanish. Like an old oak table (5:30 onwards).

    Well, Steve Fossett simply vanished too: a guy who has flown round the world non-stop multiple times, disappeared on a quiet recreational flight where no records were being broken. Never found.

    Steve Fossett probably met with an accident. John Darwin certainly did not.

    Darwin faked his own death in a canoe accident to get the insurance money, then reappeared years later claiming to have just recovered from amnesia. A likely story, that.

    But for some speculation, the Darwin story was in the news through early and mid December, just before Anu Solanki decamped. Source of inspiration, what?

  40. 42 · DQ said

    ‘Me’ – Uh huh, right. So anyone who says that flinging epithets at this girl is wrong has ‘personal issues’, but those who call her those names are perfectly alright. And we’re the ones in denial. What are you basing the 99% stat on? There’s nothing in my comment to indicate such a number. I pointed out that plenty of abused women are not fully aware of what constitutes abuse. And furthermore, there are many who will never publicly declare they’ve been abused, even if they know they have been. She may not have been abused at all, but we know TOO LITTLE to judge her and to decide hubby is an angel.

    Just being a woman is not reason enough to say cheat on a husband, elope with a lover, put the family into days of turmoil. Supporting any action such as this is insanity. There are hundreds of cases where the husbands are abused but go unspoken. This article from the guardian shows us how dishonest women are exploiting the dowry law meant to protect them.