A Death and An Incarceration that Saw Our Dignity Go Up in Smoke
When Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead, we lost a talented actor, a progressive individual and a self made inspiration. When his girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty was sent to jail, we lost our sense of dignity and succumbed to voyeurism beyond redemption .
Having tracked cinema and entertainment in India for 15 years and having worked with filmmakers and a film company in different capacities, I can tell you this. An entire industry cannot function if everyone who works there smokes up, tokes up, snorts up or jabs a syringe all day long. That way, no film would ever get made. Or released. Similarly, no OTT series would ever see the light of the Internet. Ditto for TV serials and non fiction shows.
So no, not everyone that works in cinema or entertainment is a druggie or stoner. Some partake. As people do in every other industry. Given that this industry works vaguely in the realm of art and creativity, those that consume might be inclined towards being more ‘open’ about their habits. Their business is glamorous so they also get a lot of the spotlight, whether they want it or not. They still don’t qualify to be called a ‘gutter’.
Similarly, the size or scale of Hindi cinema and allied content, while glitzy and impressive, is nowhere near big enough to dominate national news discourse at a time when GDP has touched record low and China is purportedly attacking us. Yet two Parliamentarians with film backgrounds, Jaya Bachchan and Ravi Kishen, felt it neccessary to dissect the treatment that film folk are getting these days. Does it really warrant a discussion in the Parliament? Doesnt our government have more pressing matters to deal with?
And that raises a pertinent question. Why worry about being under scrutiny? Of course a single video that Karan Johar had posted of his film buddies looking intoxicated doesn’t prove drug addiction. The moot issue is, why not let this investigation go through? If needed by authorities let everyone be questioned within the book of law. A single actor, however successful and loud, must not rattle the cage of a long standing industry so much. If there’s nothing to hide, let investigations by NCB or Mumbai Police go forward without much ado.
My personal observation is, scrutiny makes stars and their groupies uncomfortable. Film folk like the attention but they like it on their terms. It’s a selective, curated, PR controlled approach to public attention.
It might indeed be a time for truth telling and reconciliation within certain sections of Hindi film folk about their habits. For many there isn’t anything to say or hide. Specialised police agencies don’t much care about who took drugs and who got high among celebrities. Through these stars, they aim to nab suppliers and dealers. Their larger aim, at least in the past, has been to keep drugs off the streets. That’s not such a bad thing. Saving a social media addicted, Internet zombie generation, from another addiction, is a worthwhile cause.
And neither should we care so much. If some people within the film industry or entertainment business do drugs, ignore them. They don’t matter in the long run. Look at more pressing issues instead. Like the fact that our middle class is fast turning poorer; the environment is suffering and that we have a massive unemployment crisis in our country today. Argue over these issues of relevance on social media, if you have to.
In the end, after all the screaming, debating and reporting on ‘exclusives, when the noise settled, it is alleged that Sushant Singh Rajput might have used contraband substances. Does that make him a sinner, or a saint in death? Neither. On two occasions when I had interacted with him, he came across as the one guy that would have become number one crush in any engineering college or tech company, had he chosen that life. He was intelligent, had a lovely smile and was a little distracted. His death is a huge loss. He was human, vulnerable and emotional like most people.
As for Rhea, her media trial and public lynching on social media points to a more disturbing trend . There is a certain violent and judgmental response towards English speaking, city bred, liberal minded women that people display. Rhea seemed to smybolize this ‘type’. I have faced this prejudice in unpredictable and unfair ways from relatives and acquaintances. I have leanrt to live with it. Holding up such women to their ‘karma’ and making them suffer is almost a blood sport, a sort of ‘comeuppance’ on them. Once this news story has died down, there will be another, where another left of center, or liberal person, will be the focal point of aimless, toxic hate.
In conclusion, we don’t own television at home. Online live streams gave us bad stomachs the few times when we opted to watch some news channels on the Sushant story. To all those that churned TRPs by milking this tragedy, you do no service of any kind to your nation or society. To all those that watched addictively, Get A Life.