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Arrested artist Chintan Upadhyay’s personal diary, which the Mumbai police have attached as evidence against him in the chargesheet filed in the Hema Upadhyay and Haresh Bhambani double murder case recently, sheds light on Chintan’s ‘troubled relationship’ with the slain installation artist, and their “exhausting” divorce battle. Chintan, in the diary, terms Hema as “abusive and hysterical,” saying that she was so career-centric that she never sought love. The diary shows how Chintan was tired of the relationship, defended his pornographic sketches and worried about the art world’s reaction on the criminal complaint filed by Hema against him.
In the forty-page diary, Chintan has complained about how Hema had double standards, and never believed in the issues she represented. He goes on to say that Hema was insensitive to people “below her level” and that she always used people, even her friends, for her personal gain. He added that he felt that even he was only a counsellor to her, someone to help her make the right career choices.
Probably preparing his list of complaints for the couple’s divorce petition, Chintan jotted twenty three points in his diary, some of which were as follows:
- She
forced me to take her to Mumbai. In fact, she has tickets already reserved.
- Because
of moving, our expenses jumped. We had to buy everything, also transportation
and phones cost went up. For some time, we had to use a stove, took loans from
friends.
- Fights
and abuses on the street
- Abusive
to my staff and me in my own studio
- She
was constantly travelling for many shows in India and abroad and discarded me
and house from her routine.
- Driver
– She wanted to throw him for no reason, also tried to put a police complaint.
- She
started not to inform me when her family comes to Mumbai
In another list of eleven complaints, Chintan wrote,
Talking further about the court case, Chintan wrote
that he was totally tired with the case and mused how Hema was willing to
devote so much time to it.
In the diary, Chintan also mentioned a mediation session ordered by the court during their divorce proceedings. He noted that during the session, Hema was behaving too regressively for a “so-called successful feminist artist.” He wrote that Hema cried before the mediator saying that she wanted her husband back. She told the mediator that she lives alone, and people think she is a prostitute, send her letters and messages. She also added that she was over forty years of age, and wouldn’t be able to find someone else to marry.
Defending himself against the criminal complaint
registered by Hema where she had accused Chintan of drawing pornographic
sketches in her room, Chintan wrote that Hema had forgotten that she had gifted
him four pornographic books which she had bought for him from a trip to Japan,
and that since their courtship days in college, Hema was aware that the theme of
Chintan’s work was mainly sexuality in India. “I am anyway vulnerable to
express my ideas in public and showing them against taboos in India. She, as an
artist, has a responsibility. But she used open ends of interpretations against
me,” Chintan complained.
In another entry, Chintan expressed that he felt that Hema wanted to destroy everything between them. He added that he hadn’t done anything wrong to her since their separation; however, she was always ready to fight with him.
Chintan, in his diary, also expressed how he was disgruntled with the art world since they did not stand in his support after Hema registered the complaint against him, while Hema’s galleries continued to display her work. He wrote that he felt victimised by the creative world’s reaction to their affair.
The Mumbai police believe that it is this troubled
relationship, the disturbed state of Chintan’s mind following it, that led him
to plot his estranged wife and her lawyer’s murders. The police have also
attached copies of a few sketches drawn by Chintan to highlight his mental
state.
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