Sushant Singh Rajput: Life after Death
Sushant Singh Rajput will go down as one of the tragic characters in the history of our nation. And for all the wrong reasons. Perhaps all the good work this intelligent man had done in his acting career will sadly be pushed back into oblivion and he will be remembered for turning the film industry upside down after his death.
His death came by suicide. And that sparked off issues of nepotism in Bollywood, “Favoured Clubs” in Bollywood, the plight of the have nots in Bollywood and finally, it split open the drug rackets that govern Bollywood.
Worst, his suicide became a political issue, with political parties making a sad event into a rival bashing whip.
Somewhere, his performance in Kai Po Che, where alongwith Rajkumar Rao and Amit Sadh (incidetally his fellow actor in the same film, Asif Basra also committed suicide a few week back) wil go in to the back burner, his role as Detective Byomkesh Bakshi in the film by the same name will go in to history books with faded pages. His role as M S Dhoni will be perhaps remembered more since it was a biopic on one of India’s most popular stars. That is to say, for the wrong reasons. The rest of his films will never get a mention.
Sushant was born and raised in Patna and Delhi was more of a curious student than an actor. He had developed a keen interest in astrophysics and actually wanted to become an astronaut.
He even studied for a while in Delhi College of Engineering, initially trained to be a dancer under Shiamak Davar and finally opted for a full time acting career.
He moved to Mumbai, did odd jobs and small roles till he joined Nadira Babbar’s theatre group Ekjute. A few roles in TV serials brought him noticeability and soon he graduated onto the big screen. The big screen performances were a huge success and perhaps this is where the troubles began. He became a celebrity and with it came all the ills of the industry.
Actually no one knows what drove him to suicide and it may have been better for the nation to accept the tragedy and grieve but some people decided to pull the trigger. It led to accusations, counter accusations, conspiracy theories, media trials with rumour mills working double shifts. Some of it was filth but it did open the dark side of Bollywood, it showed that everyone in the hamam was naked. It also became a matter of downright trash exchanged in social media. It was an ideal platter for political parties to throw at each other.
Actually, for four months the nation shamed themselves. The poor Sushant, in death, had become the chutney for people to enjoy the pakoras.No body spared him a thought, every one’s politics dependant on which side of Rhea Chakravarty you stood.
If Sushant Singh Rajput’s death has exposed the ugly side of this nation, we must take hope that there is dawn after a dark night. We must believe that people will introspect, go for soul cleansing and come together to mourn his death.
With decency. We owe him a proper tribute.