It was love at first sight with Nihita: Sobhraj

KATHMANDU: Charles Sobhraj doesn't wear an engagement ring because, as he says, "Standard rings don't fit me." But flexing his fingers behind the meshed partition of the long, narrow room in Kathmandu's Central Jail where prisoners are allowed to meet visitors, Sobhraj says that once he's released, he will go to Paris and buy the finest engagement and wedding rings.(Watch)
Adding a twist to his dramatic life, the 64-year-old is all set to take the plunge again, this time with a 20-year-old Nepalese stunner Nihita Biswas. It would be his second official marriage. In the 1960s, when he was running a formidable network of passport forgery and other crimes targeting western tourists, he married a chic Parisienne, Chantal Compagnon. He has a daughter from that marriage, who is older than his new fiancee.
Nihita Biswas, the smart and pretty new woman in his life, is 20. Although Sobhraj and Chantal are divorced, they remain friends with Chantal helping him out of Paris with expert advice and other documents that he needs to fight the life term slapped on him by a Kathmandu court four years ago.
Chantal was followed by a French woman of Chinese origin with whom Sobhraj lived after his deportation from India in 1997. The couple had a second daughter, now eight.
Sobhraj's first marriage ended after he came to Kathmandu in 2003 and was arrested by Nepal police, who charged him with the murder of an American tourist in 1975.
Since his arrest, Sobhraj has been behind bars in Nepal. "I did not love her," Sobhraj says of his common law wife. "For me to fall in love, the woman has to be intelligent."
He says it was love at first sight with Nihita, who walked into the prison three months ago to meet him after a mutual acquaintance told her that he was looking for an interpreter for his French lawyer.
Although the lawyer had left Nepal by the time Nihita went down to meet Sobhraj, she made such an impression on him that he wanted to see her again. "So he pretended to have another assignment for me," laughs Nihita. "He gave me a huge shopping list. It was mostly canned stuff."
Undeterred by the presence of curious prison guards and the deafening noise in the visiting room, romance blossomed. Asked how they could have any conversation in that din, she says: "It's simple. I just look into his eyes and read his lips."
Nihita is unfazed by Sobhraj's age, earlier relationships or his criminal background. She has readily accepted Sobhraj's decision that his eight-year-old daughter would live with them.
"I don't know what he was," she says. "What he is now is important. He is a good man, I have seen the way he cares for his family. We have a good relationship." She is confident that Nepal's Supreme Court will acquit him. "He's innocent," she says. "There's no evidence against him."
Sobhraj and Nihita have already exchanged rings and plan to solemnise the marriage after his release. They are also planning to write a new book together, on how they found love in the most daunting circumstances.