A few months ago, the murder of a boy of four years by his mother came to light. The incident happened in Goa. The perpetrator of the crime was a Bengali woman. Supposedly well off, supposedly the owner of her own start-up venture, one would be at a loss to explain why such a “successful” person could commit such a heinous crime. There are many things which meet the eye, and many which don’t. If one carefully reads between the lines, hand in hand with human psychology, a few things come to light.
Let’s first see what meets the eye. What are the facts of this case?
SS (let’s call her that) was married to her husband PRV for almost a decade when she bore him a son. Things between the couple went awry soon after. After a seemingly acrimonious legal battle, SS was granted the custody of the four year old. PRV, besides having to pay up maintenance, was granted visitation rights of once, every week. That is where the acrimony took a turn for criminality.
Flight
Unhappy with the court order, wanting her son ‘all for herself’, she checked into a Goa hotel with her son, where her toddler was last seen alive. Two days later when she checked out of the hotel, with only a very heavy bag, and a desire to reach Bangalore strictly by road, things started smelling fishy. The hotel staff and the scheduled taxi driver both insisted heavily on her availing the one hour flight as opposed to the arduous 10h long road journey. Nonetheless, she left for Bangalore in the cab, meanwhile, room service got busy preparing the room for the next guest.
A murder plot which had played out soon started unravelling. Room service was prompt to report a blood stained towel from the recently vacated room. The hotel staff dials the Calangute police, they get in touch with the taxi driver carrying Suchana and her big bag, enroute to Bangalore, over phone. A crafty and cool headed effort both on part of the police and the taxi driver, lands SS up in a Chitradurga police station. SS, who has been composed and calm so far, displays a shocking nonchalance when police apprehend her after finding the dead body of her son in the bag, which was kept inside the trunk of the moving car.
Smothered by “Love”
The life of the little one was snuffed out by the “loving” mother. Although she declared that she “had done nothing” and was “not responsible for his death”, the murderous woman also revealed that she was dismayed by the adverse court order in regards to visitation rights. She wanted to have “her” boy all to herself. A supposedly violent man like PRV, the boy’s father, could have no rights and that no court in the world could take away from her what was hers – meaning the boy, and his exclusive “rights” on him. That was the reason, she said, she killed her son by smothering him, but again, she was not responsible, contrary, according to her, to the Jakarta resident husband who was actually “responsible” for her state.
Later, when the husband, who tried to meet the son over the weekend and failed, flew down from Jakarta and confronted her, at the insistence of the police on why she had killed their son. It is reported that both flew into fits of rage on seeing each other and the murderer repeated that it was only the husband who was responsible and not her. It was because of him, she and her son, were wherever they were, while he, who was really “guilty” was roaming free.
The last piece of media reporting which came about this incident was the sound bite provided by the lawyer.
He can die for his son but will now have to live without him. My client has no claim for justice for himself or the child, who is no more.
Legal counsel of the bereaved father
That which doesn’t meet the eye
There are several questions which are posed from the penal and legal aspects and several facts were established by the police. However, I wouldn’t discuss them so much as I put my two cents here on the psychological aspects which culminated in the murder of an innocent toddler by his mother who was a successful careerist and an affluent individual – both things much vaunted and sought after by post modern feminists.
The first thing which shocked me was the lack of remorse and absolute apathy towards the dead body of her own child. The child was put in a bag, hauled around for hundreds of miles in the trunk of a hired cab. Far from being remorseful after committing fillicide, she sought to undermine her role (not deny it, mind you) and blame a person who was determined by the police to be absent during this whole sordid incident. A torn note was found from the bag containing the body. It was a “suicide note”, which SS had apparently penned, using an eyeliner.
The custody of my son should remain with me no matter what, even if the court grants us divorce, I want the custody of my son.
SS
Frankly, like everyone else, I was too shocked and a bit amused in the initial days. Thanks to satellite television and now, 24h streaming channels on YouTube, one can get a hold of any sensational news from any part of the world, and content is being generated 24×7 on any topic and every topic. So, it was not much difficult to get the basic facts of the case from the huge trove of public information. However, it is the above piece of information which actually got me thinking – “no matter what, I want”, where have we seen that before? Rather, what kind of people say no matter what and proceed to do that which, actually matters in the real world.
They walk amongst us
Behold, the passive aggressive covert narcissist. I assure you, each of those words in the definition mean something. The covert narcissist is one of the most disruptive abominations among personality disorders. This personality disorder lies beneath the surface of an apparently functional and normal human being. There are very subtle if not completely invisible signs which give away a covert narcissist. Unlike an overt narcissist who thrives on and projects a sense of grandiosity, the covert narcissist while being equally grandiose, hides it away from the world, ever on the lookout for validation from each and every individual they come across. They will go to any extent, in this case, to murderous extent, to retain their sense of grandiosity, that of being superior to God himself, and by no means am I joking. If you’ve come across a covert narcissist in your life, it is highly likely that you will not be able to recognise them unless you do something which invalidates their false sense of superiority – their false ego. That is when all the trouble starts.
Judging the prejudiced
Prejudiced is too kind a word to be describing a narcissist, much less a covert one. Jaundiced is a term more accurate. In jaundice, one of the most visible signs of having the affliction is the yellow hue the body acquires. Yellow eyes, and a yellow skin.
Reality appears coloured, different, altered to individuals like this. If you suffer from a God complex, and yet always have a voice within your head, your false ego, always hammering you that you are not good enough for this world, you too would be caught between the opposing pulls your psyche is exerting on you, and it will definitely take you to extremes society can only think of in nightmares. The causes of why such a person or psyche is created (not born) is beyond the scope of this discussion. Much academic research has been done into this. The US DSM does list Narcissistic Personality Disorder as one of the primary personality disorders, so stay assured – such people do exist.
In their extreme lust for validation from one and all, a polar opposite goal they pursue is victim-hood. Each narcissist wants to project themselves as the most unique victim in the world. Mind you, you may want to become the Most RICH, Most BEAUTIFUL, Most FAMOUS, or Most <whatever>. However, a narcissist does not want to become Most Anything. The individual accepts that they are incapable of actually becoming anything – so they wish to become NOTHING – the rarest victim in the whole of humankind. They are ready to show the world how amazingly awesome they are and yet, how uniquely victimised they are, by the big bad world, and how they have been wronged by the entire world, through their entire existence and how (not why) exactly for this reason, they should be looked upon as the most victimised individual in the entire world. This is the title they want to bestow upon themselves, and for that they are able to go even the most self-destructive distances of depravity which can be gone to. Don’t believe one word of what is written above? Neither did I, till a certain point in time.
The give-away
The last thing the covert narcissist wants you to know is the reality that they are one. As absurd that might sound. However, when their actions are studied closely, when the microscope is on their pathway of self-destructive and self-serving chain of events, the evidence is convincing.
- Apathy, complete lack of empathy for a fellow human being
- Self absorbed to the point of not accepting the realities of nature and society at large
- An absolute desire for self aggrandisement and objectification of people
- Zero accountability for own actions, even filicide
Let’s go one by one. Lack of empathy. Can you imagine a mother without empathy? Forget that, do you remember when you were a child what your mother meant to you. Now imagine she being there in person but never caring for your well being. Physically or worse, imagine an emotionally abusive parent. Imagine being treated like a object, like a doll by your mother. She can feed you when she feels like it, she may not feed you when she is playing with her other toys, or when she has had a fight with her “friend” (husband in this case). According to her whims and fancies, she may treat you to an ice cream or simply throw your little body down the stairs and take you apart. Because to her, you are nothing but an object – and of course, no one can empathise with a non living thing. This is how Narcissists treat everyone else. No empathy, complete apathy. SS fits the bill. Purely for punishing an “enemy” she is ready to sacrifice her own blood and flesh, her son, whom she was supposed to save and protect from all dangers of this world. A basic instinct of all animals, not just humans.
Reality denial. I keep coming back to the point of “no matter what, I want”. That there is a society, that there are powers that be, that there is social, parental accountability and above all, some boundaries that can never be crossed is completely lost on the Narcissistic individual. Everyone is a pawn, every game is fair. ‘Authorities do not, exist, only I do’. ‘If not I, no one’. The whole reality of these individuals is based on the presupposed mental image they form from the first look of people. A ‘snapshot’ of people, if you will. Once the real you deviates from the snapshot you, that is when the trouble begins. SS for some reason only known to her (and psychologists) confabulated that, courts existed to serve her fancies and her twisted sense of justice. Once the real courts provided judgement in her divorce case – granting visitation rights to the father, something SS did not wish for, she didn’t think twice about transgressing social and legal boundaries. It’s my way or highway, forever and always.
Zero accountability. When we were kids playing gully cricket, anyone who hit the ball, even for a boundary – into the drain, or an over-boundary into the neighbour’s yard, they had to go and fetch it themselves. Scoring a four or a six, did not take away, from the scorer, the responsibility from fetching the ball back into the play. One can make many more such cases on how society and daily life drills into us the concepts of responsibility and accountability. Accountability, bearing the brunt of one’s own doing, is one of the canons of a civilised life. In professional life, if we do a mistake we take the onus upon ourselves, accept the mistakes and move on. Learning to err but setting things right or suffering consequences is also a lesson which life teaches us. In this brutal case of murder of a four year old by his own mother, that norm of social and human behaviour has been violated as well. When the husband was called by the police for joining the investigation and the couple was made to confront each other, PRV posed the question why she did what she did, why did she kill their baby?
I did not commit the crime
SS
She has been confirming all other parts, including that she carried the child’s corpse in a bag. But she refuses to confess that she killed him. She repeatedly claims her husband is responsible for the child’s death
Senior official connected to the investigation
So yes, of course, the narcissist is not responsible for killing her child, her husband is! No accountability for crimes committed, none whatsoever.
The reader might remember that the hotel staff had found blood stained towel from the vacated room. What was the mystery behind this, as it seemed the child was smothered in his cough syrup induced sleep? That was revealed by SS herself. She tried to commit suicide by slitting her wrists first, but not having the knowledge where to cut, it did not have the desired effect. In the end, she decided against ending her life, and packed the dead child in her bag instead – she wanted to keep him with her in their Bangalore home, forever, whatever the cost. He was more precious to her dead than alive. For a live child may wish and want to meet his father, the dead child will never. Such is the abject objectification of people done by individuals, passive aggressive covert narcissists.
This case is an extreme, but a timely reminder to all people who have empathy for fellow human beings, that the narcissists, insufferable as they are – they walk amongst us.