A Love That Died Young

The deaths of a young couple on a Monday afternoon has taken local newspaper headlines and has become a topic of long talks among the residents of India’s financial hub Mumbai. An ancient family feud between the Agnihotris and Mukherjees led to the death of their children who fell in love and were in a relationship for a while. The young couple, both aged 19, knew that their parents would not consent to their marriage so they decided to end their lives together and did so, in a field owned by the Agnihotris.

A hired servant of the girl’s family saw the dead bodies of the couple on his way to work and immediately reported this to his master. Both the families hurried to the scene along with the paramedics who tried to revive the lovers but failed. The young couple Ananya and Karan had been in love for two months and met secretly in a temple nearby.

“I had heard from Ananya’s best friend that she had fallen in love with Karan Mukherjee. I was planning on confronting her about her secret meeting with him but I never got a chance,” said Ananya’s mom Rachna Agnihotri. Ananya had been sharing details about her secret meetings with her best friend Ada Malik. The two had been best friends since kindergarten and shared a deep bond.

“This has come as a shock to both families. I never thought that enmity between our families would lead to our children’s death,” said Pranay Mukherjee. The two decided to take a strong poison which would choke them, leading to certain death. The reason for conflict between the families had been over a piece of land claimed to be owned by the Mukherjee family.

The two families were later known to have resolved their rivalry and chose to live in peace with each other. The temple where the two young lovers often met was renamed in honour of them.