In her essay for Believer Magazine, Mallika Rao opens with details about a famous optical illusion from a German magazine in 1892. Some people saw a duck, others saw a rabbit, and psychologists and philosophers saw a window into human perception. With that mindset established, Rao delves into the 2014 death of 10-year-old Arnav Dhawan, a child with special needs. Mother Pallavi Dhawan says she found him dead and put him in a tub with bags of ice, not alerting authorities but waiting for her husband to return days later from a trip to India so he could "release" the boy's soul. At first glance, the perception issue is directed at police, who immediately arrested the mother despite a highly ambiguous scene. "What details they found supported their narrative, one that maintained a presumption of guilt," Rao writes. But there is far more to this story, including the subsequent murder-suicide of Pallavi and husband Sumeet Dhawan.
It happened in Frisco, Texas, where families of Indian descent represent the largest ethnic bloc, second only to whites. Rao is also Indian, which gives her a window into the circumstances surrounding the three deaths. Culture, faith, immigration, race, gender, language, mental health, medical history, infidelity, parenting, and shoddy police work are just some of the factors at play. As the essay unfolds, it is increasingly clear why the "duck and rabbit" reference is so relevant. From the day of Arnav’s death to the day his parents died, events were steeped in misperceptions, biases, and faulty assumptions. Everything depends upon the viewpoints and predispositions of the individuals involved. In the end, Rao says, "Blame feels impossible to place.” (Read the full story for more specifics on the case.)
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