How did you start working as a detective?
During my college days, I would help my friends exchange love letters, and get hold of each other’s landline numbers. They would not even know where the boys or girls lived, but I would locate their homes, get their numbers and even get some information on the families. It was thrilling and exciting.
So eventually, I shifted my focus to taking it up as a profession. I set up my business in 1999 and have been working as a detective since then.
Who are your clients?
I have handled over 9,500 cases in the 25 years of my career. Of these 70-75% are related to marriage/relationships.
Between 70% and 80% of my clients are women who suspect that their partner is cheating on them. I feel that women, even if it’s an 8-year-old girl, have a really sharp sixth sense. They can pick up on minute changes in their partner’s behaviour.
They come to us saying that their partner’s behaviour has changed in the last 2-3 months. It could be minor things like locking the phone, or spending more time on the phone, or fighting. Khaamiyaan nikaalna (constant fault finding). Pehle jahaan zulfon mein kho jaate the, abhi sabji mein baal aagaye toh chillate hain. (Once they’d melt into the lover’s beautiful tresses. Now they meltdown at a strand of hair in the food).
It’s not just married couples.
I also get clients who are in a live-in relationship; or girlfriend-boyfriends in colleges. We also get cases from people who are gay/lesbian. In the end, any couple has the same needs—physical, emotions and financial needs. Human fitrat mein koi farak nahi hai.
Some of my clients are college students too. For them, we see an increase in the number of cases around the time of festivals like Navaratri, or when there are special days such as Valentine’s Day. Even if they don’t sense any difference in their partner’s behaviour, they sometimes randomly decide to do a check around these days.
Sadly, in my experience, 96% of the time, these suspicions are valid.
You shared that you do pre-matrimonial investigations too. What do you find out in such cases?
People want to check if their partners have given the correct information. Often, we find that people have lied about their income, education, family background. They have hidden any criminal activity or exaggerated property ownership.
Is there a change in how much cheating happens over the years?
I won’t say cheating didn’t happen earlier. It’s probably going on since ancient times. But I can say that earlier cases were fewer. Now, every third-fourth house has such incidents.
Why is that?
With social media it’s increased a lot. Like anything, social media has its pluses and minuses.
The mobile opens you to a new world and brings a full universe in front of you. It’ll say if you are unsatisfied you can try this or that.
So, you are saying people cheat now because opportunities are more?
Yes.
What are the most interesting cases that you have worked on?
One case that I remember, in 2019, was of an NRI couple who used to work in an MNC. They had come back to India, because the husband was given the responsibility of setting up an office for the company in India. But within 6 months of living in India, the husband started noticing changes in his wife’s behaviour. He hired us to find out what was happening. We first bought a new phone, cloned it and then had him gift it to his wife. We found out that the wife was chatting with someone online. We suspected that if she was chatting with people, there is a chance that she might be seeing them offline as well. We shadowed her and found that she was meeting not just one, but 5-6 different guys. This shocked not only her partner, but us as well!
We recently handled a case for a young woman from a well-settled family in Mumbai. She had met a guy through some common friends and after some time, they got married.
Then, 3-4 months after the wedding, he’d demand gifts from the wife, said “I need money for business etc”. She must have told a friend who said such behaviour was not normal.
Plus, every month, he’d travel outside town for 3-4 days. The wife connected with us and we found that he would travel to one of the towns in Madhya Pradesh where he had a full other family—a wife and children!
So, what happened then?
Our job is only to get evidence. We follow the partners and see who they are meeting etc. We don’t usually get involved further. In rare cases, if the client asks for it, we help the couple with counselling
Are there still cases that shock you?
Yes. We got a female client who’d been married for 18 years and the couple had a child with special needs. The husband was working and at the age of 42-43, suddenly turned to the wife and said he wanted a divorce. And not just that, he wanted to take no responsibility for the child either.
That case hurt us, how can you abandon your child like this? The wife came to use because she’d noticed that his behaviour had changed, he’d been rude, was fighting for no reason. On investigation we realized that there was someone in his office he was attached to.
Do people take their partners back after cheating?
Some times the families come together to discuss the matter and the cheating partner commits that it won’t happen.
Do such partners continue to cheat?
One can’t predict that. In some case, when people are found cheating, they do try to fix their mistake. But yes, in lots of cases people do cheat again.
What have you learnt about love and relationships through your work? What are your observations?
Dating apps are popular these days. In my experience, though, most dating apps are used for phishing. It’s not that people don’t find true love or lasting relationships via these apps. They do. But many of the profiles are fake. They are used to trap young people, and manipulate them financially, emotionally or sexually. So one must be careful about what one shares on social media or on these apps.
It’s not just technology though. The fragility of romantic relationships and marriage is not something that exists in isolation. Larger changes in society affect these relationships. Earlier there used to be a sense of community and belonging, and this made all kinds of relationships stronger. For example, earlier people used to live in joint families. So weaker members of the family would be supported by the extended family. Everyone was taken care of. But nowadays, with nuclear families, people don’t have anyone else to rely on. No matter what their physical, mental or financial capacity, they have to survive somehow. And so sometimes, people take to negative ways such as manipulating others or cheating others as a way to survive.
You come across so many cases of cheating and infidelity. Does that leave a mark on your personal relationships?
I see so many negative aspects of humanity. But I try not to let these experiences affect my own relationships. I am not a cynic. I don’t think the world is a bad place – there are bad people. And even there, I believe that each one of us has an angel and a demon within us. They are not external to us. The side of us that we choose to nourish and encourage is what eventually shows up. If you make the wrong choices, you eventually become a bad person. On the other hand, when we choose kindness and empathy, you become a good person.
Have you ever come across a case with a positive/happy ending, for example, where a person thought that their partner was cheating on them, but they actually weren’t?
There was a case from Surat a few years ago. It was a happy business family in the diamond business. The wife called saying that her husband had started behaving differently.
We followed him for 20-25 days and even appointed a karigar at his factory to keep tabs on his behaviour. But the man would go from home to office and straight back home. There was nothing extra in his routine. We realized that the changed behaviour was likely due to the stress that he was under. The Russia-Ukraine war had affected the business and he was depressed because of that.
There have also been cases where the final outcome has been hopeful.
I have personally witnessed positive stories emerge even out of cases where people cheated their partner. For example, there was this one case, where a woman had hired us. She had no one in the world, except for her husband. Her parents were dead. She had no siblings. We caught her husband cheating. I took personal responsibility to speak to him and make him aware of his responsibilities. I advised him not to give up his peaceful life and the future of his children for the sake of an affair. We did three-four such sessions of counselling for him. And that gave a positive result. Now, it has been six months and the couple is back together and living happily.
This is the part of my job that I like the most. People feel that detectives break families. But that’s not what we do. If someone is cheating, and we catch them, that doesn’t make us villains. That is the fault of the cheater. We save homes; we help people. Recently, we had put out an ad for Valentine’s Day, on which we had offered a huge discount on our services. There was a reason for doing that. Many of our clients are women who are homemakers. They don't have much money, and can’t always afford to hire a detective. By offering the discount, I wanted to be able to help such sisters of mine, who are struggling financially.
According to you, are there signs that someone is likely to cheat on you in future?
When they demand gifts. Whether it’s a man or a woman. Why? It’s important to give something in a relationship on your own. Not to be asked for it.
Dominating you is another bad sign. When they humiliate you in public, or cut you off, not respect you enough.
These would be signs to think about – because they don’t indicate an attitude of trust.
What relationship advice would you give to people then, based on your experiences?
One advice that I would give people, based on my experiences, is that when comparing their partner to someone else that they are attracted to, they should also take context into account. So for example, a man may feel attracted to a female colleague who dresses well, speaks politely etc. But those are requirements of the job. She is not in a space where she can speak angrily, or dress shabbily. Similarly, a man who speaks gently and softly at work, may not necessarily be so outside of work. People need to remember that we are all human, and we all are flawed. Even the most good looking people have colds and coughs, upset stomachs etc. They can be unattractive at times too. So don’t mess up your lives with this constant comparison and the search for someone “better.”
