Mumbai: Since childhood, Payal Tadvi had the maturity to understand that she would be the sole breadwinner of her family after her parents, her brother Ritesh Tadvi, who is polio-affected, remembers. Of late, she was aware that the time had come for her to step up, he says.
“Our parents are just a few years away from retirement; my mother is battling cancer,” Ritesh, six years older to Payal, told ThePrint. “She was always so mature… it is difficult to believe that she would take such a step.”
On 22 May, 26-year-old Payal, a second-year PG student of gynaecology and obstetrics at Mumbai’s BYL Nair Hospital, allegedly committed suicide in her hostel room. Three of her senior colleagues — Bhakti Mehare, Hema Ahuja and Ankita Khandelwal — have been arrested for allegedly harassing her and passing casteist remarks.
Payal’s relatives and friends say all of her troubles began only after she moved to Mumbai. Otherwise, for most of her life, she was just another cheerful, hardworking and ambitious girl who enjoyed watching Game of Thrones, going out with friends and had a vibrant social life.
Also read: Mumbai cops suspect ‘suicide note’ of Dr Payal Tadvi was hidden or destroyed by accused
‘A smart child who loved to dance’
Payal grew up in Jalgaon, a small city 410 km from Mumbai, in a two-bedroom house with her parents, Abeda and Salim, and her brother Ritesh. Both her parents work in the Zilla Parishad office at Jalgaon.
Payal studied at the Progressive English Medium School in the city and aspired to be a doctor since the time she understood the concept of growing up and pursuing a career.
“She used to see me travel to Mumbai for medical treatment. When she was a child, she would say ‘I want to be a doctor and help my brother’,” Ritesh says. “Her teachers too would tell our parents how bright Payal was with her schoolwork. They would urge my parents to ensure she gets to study whatever she wants and goes a long way in life.”
Payal’s family belongs to the Tadvi Muslim Bhil Scheduled Tribe community, traditionally known for its dependence on agriculture and low literacy levels. As per the Encyclopaedia of World Muslims — Tribes, Castes and Communities, Tadvi children are not very highly educated. Tadvi boys usually study to the level of secondary school and girls to the level of primary school, making Payal and her aspirations stand out.
Ever since her death, Payal’s grieving parents have been telling the media, with a hint of pride underlying their sorrow, that she was the first doctor in the family and perhaps even the first woman doctor from her community.
Payal also loved to dance and had actively participated in various cultural programmes at school. Ritesh fondly recollects how Payal even gave a few auditions to television reality shows such as Sony’s ‘Boogie Woogie’.
‘Always kept her cool, counselled friends who were stressed’
Payal spent the two years of her junior college at Jalgaon’s M.J. College and prepared for her medical Common Entrance Test. Thereafter, for the first time in 18 years, Payal left her home in Jalgaon to study MBBS at the Government Medical College in Miraj, 670 km from Jalgaon.
Dr Romil Kakad, one of Payal’s close friends from her MBBS days, said the Payal they knew was always “happy go lucky, stress-free and hard-working”.
“She loved going out, hanging out with friends. She was never scared of the workload,” Kakad says. “Ask anyone, from the peons to the nurses to the doctors, everyone will tell you that she always diligently completed her work.”
“In fact, she would often counsel our friends and tell them to keep their cool during their ups and downs,” says Kakad, 27, who now works as a medical officer at Akola.
It was while she was studying that a family, also from the Tadvi Bhil Muslim Scheduled Tribe community, approached Payal’s family asking for her hand for their son, Dr Salman Tadvi.
“Marriage was not on Payal’s agenda. Our parents weren’t actively pushing her to get married either,” Ritesh says. “But the fact that Salman was also a doctor and in a position to understand her long and erratic working hours, made my parents think about it.”
Payal’s parents convinced the groom’s family to hold off the marriage and got her engaged instead.
Payal graduated in 2015, completed her year-long internship at the Sangli-based PVP Government Hospital in 2016 and got married on February 14, Valentine’s Day, in the same year. Her Facebook timeline during this period of her life shows a happy bride-to-be, her face covered with haldi (turmeric), surrounded by her friends.
“Our entire batch went for Payal’s wedding. Unfortunately, the next time we all gathered was for her funeral,” Kakad says.
Also read: All about Muslim Tadvi Bhils, the community of the Mumbai doctor who killed herself
‘Everyone is worried I might commit suicide’: Payal to friend
When Payal got married, her husband was based in Mumbai, pursuing his MD in anaesthesia at the civic-run King Edward Memorial College, after which he took up a job at Cooper Hospital at Vile Parle in the western suburbs. He recently rented an apartment at Mahalaxmi in south Mumbai, close to Nair Hospital.
Payal gave up a PG admission at Latur Medical College, hoping for a spot in Mumbai so that she could finally be in the same city as Salman, and got through at Nair Hospital where she started her course on 1 May 2018. Due to her workload and odd working hours, however, Payal stayed at the college hostel.
On 30 November 2018, Kakad got a disturbing message from Payal on his phone. “Sagle tension madhe aale ahet me suicide tar nahi na karun ghenar (Everyone is worried I might commit suicide),” the message read.
In the WhatsApp chat, Payal described to her friend how three seniors had driven her to the point where she couldn’t bear it anymore. The messages went on to say that the seniors were targeting her, not allowing her to perform procedures such as a delivery and episiotomy (a surgical cut at the vagina to aid a difficult delivery).
“They loudly scold me in the ward in front of patients and relatives, so loud that you can hear it from one corner to another,” Payal said in the WhatsApp chat in Marathi. “Ani ase tase nahi, khup ghan bolte (It’s not normal, they say very bad things).”
Kakad says the message mentioning suicide was followed by a laughing smiley and he assumed it was in a lighter vein. “I told her to get her unit changed,” Kakad says, adding, however, that he was not aware of any casteist remarks.
It was around the same time that Payal confided about the alleged harassment in detail to her mother. Her family took up the matter with the head of gynaecology and had almost registered a written complaint with the dean. Salman, however, held them back fearing Payal might be targeted even more after a written complaint.
A few hours before Payal died, she called her mother, saying she couldn’t bear it anymore and switched off her phone after that, brother Ritesh says.
“My mother advised her to go to her husband’s house for the night and promised to be there the next day. But at around 7.30 pm we got a call saying Payal is admitted at Nair Hospital. Her condition is critical,” Ritesh says. “While on our way, we got another call telling us to come to JJ Hospital instead. That’s when I thought something was horribly wrong.
“A few hours later my worst fears were confirmed,” he adds.
Also read: Payal Tadvi case isn’t the only one. Many upper caste women harass others, overlooking gender
In today’s age, no one is that foolish to pass any castist remarks, due to fear of atrocity. No one, especially in medical field, not even in feet of rage.
And about work culture, each and every junior from any college, any caste, any strata of society has to go through such hardship. This is how every doctor, in this country, have been trained since old age. They do the same thing when they go to second year and become seniors. If you check any junior’s chat history, at some point of time you will find same kind of msgs. But, keep in mind, after 6 months, more than 90% of them become very good friends with seniors.
Instead of finding the real cause of this incidence, everyone is giving their opinion and giving it a different colour.
Its like, before any confirmation, everyone has made up their mind and passed the decision that those three girls and culprit.
Political people are utilizing this for their own benefit. They are just making their own meals by making fire out of small spark and burning others house.
Same goes with the media.
Really…. what you are saying is that everyone faces harassment, its normal and therefore by implication this lady should have taken it as well instead of taking her own life…. her fault. What an enlightened outlook you have!
So sad ! A beautiful life is lost because of 4 people. All 3 girls must get order to be in jail for minimum 30 years plus HOD also must be punished who couldn’t handle them at all . What a tragic end of all dreams !! Shame on those 3 so called doctors ….
Unfortunately in India it is accepted that the weak are pushed further down, by being humiliated, shouted at and so on. Abuse is ingrained in our people from a young age, bullying is rampant in schools even among the youngest of children; and jealousy, ill-will, one-upmanship and back-biting are commonplace in many professions even among those who are very senior. This is commonplace but traumatic; which is a reason why young Indians who can do so migrate in droves to the West, where they find cooperative and nurturing work environments and do so well.
Dr. Tadvi seems to have fit the bill as a victim in many ways: a woman, young, a Muslim, from a scheduled caste, and from a rural background in the big bad city of Mumbai. And then daring to have aspirations to rise, and actually have achieved something such as received an MBBS degree. Ideal credentials to be a downtrodden punching-bag!
We are all to blame. Tens of millions of Payal Tadvis continue to suffer in silence.
Culprits must get strict punishment and payal should get justice,so that in future anyone will scare of having severe punishment for doing ragging