Talking Saves Lives

Vinny Khinda

June 16, 2020

In 2003, a seventeen year old genius, ranked 7th in the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE), considered to be the toughest exam on the planet. He soon secured acceptance in the Mechanical Engineering class in Delhi College of Engineering, one of the finest technology institutes in the country. A winner of National Olympiad in Physics, he had cleared as many as 11 engineering entrance exams, including that for the Indian School of Mines.

While at the engineering college, he realized that this was not his calling; it lay elsewhere, in the world of performing arts. He soon enrolled for dance and drama classes and even took a short course on film-making in a foreign university. By the time he was in the third year of his four-year engineering course, he decided to do what he was good at. He dropped out of engineering and devoted himself full-time to dancing and pursue an acting career. Starting off as a background dancer, in 2008, he was invited to audition for a television soap-opera by the biggest producer for small screen in the country and landed the lead role in their upcoming series. As soon as it was aired, he became a household name. After a couple of additional, very successful shows and a stint at the reality television, starting 2013, he made a very successful transition to the big screen, giving a hit after hit. The engineering drop-out was now the heartthrob of the nation, infact of the subcontinent. He had everything going for him; name, fame, money, cars, a slew of great projects lined up, a great career and life ahead. But on the intervening night of June 13-14, 2020, the shining star of Indian cinema, Sushant Singh Rajput, 34 years old, hung himself from the ceiling fan in his apartment in Mumbai plunging a nation of 1.4 billion in shock, disbelief and grief. The outpouring of sorrow has not stopped, with even the Prime Minister tweeting his anguish.

So what went wrong? Why would a man who had the world at his feet, kill himself? These are the times which force us to contemplate, to travel inwards. As it has come to light, albeit belatedly, Sushant had been in clinical depression and was on medication for the past many months. That brings us to fact that when it comes to mental health, name, fame, wealth, career… everything fades into oblivion. Just like the Covid-19 pandemic we are currently battling with, deteriorating mental health does not bother about whom its gonna hit in face. Isolation adds to the problems. Although he had millions of followers on his social media profiles, but the young man was a loner. His family lived in Delhi, a thousand miles away. The industry he worked in, is notorious for its fake smiles and phony lifestyles. He had no shoulder to cry upon, no one to speak with, none to bare himself in front of. Isolation, while being in the midst of the world of glamour, killed him. It is very easy and naive to dismiss someone involved in this kind of self-harming activity as the one with a weak mind. Nothing is farther from truth. He was a very strong man, but at the same time, also a very sensitive one. A brilliant student to begin with, among the top ten in a population of a billion plus, and a self-made star in an industry notorious for nepotism and operating in camps. Not a small feat by any means. 

Actress Deepika Padukone, who has successfully fought depression in the past and has since then been openly talking about battling it, said it was important to reach out. “Talk. Communicate. Express. Seek help,” she wrote on her instagram account after Sushant’s demise. “Remember, you are not alone. We are in this together. And most importantly, there is hope.” Many others talked about how difficult it was to talk about mental health issues in India, due to a lack of understanding about it and the taboos surrounding the topic. “The conversation about mental health in India is miles from where it should be. Many people mourning Sushant’s death today snigger and gossip when someone known to them sees a shrink,” tweeted Rahul Sabharwal, city editor of The Indian Express newspaper.

UK’s Nation Health Service (NHS) has the following recommendation on one of its websites that deals with depression, “Sharing a problem with someone else or with a group can give you support and an insight into your own depression. Research shows that talking can help people recover from depression and cope better with stress. You may not feel comfortable about discussing your mental health and sharing your distress with others. If this is the case, writing about how you feel or expressing your emotions through poetry or art are other ways to help your mood.”

Being a kid of 70s, I was fortunate to have grown up in the pre- television/phone/internet era. Father being a surgeon in a Government of India hospital setup, we lived in a governmental neighborhood, a cluster of duplexes, in a small town in Punjab. There were no phones, so folks simply knocked at the door and were always welcomed wholeheartedly, 24X7. Evenings in our locality resembled a carnival, the small boys and girls, doing what they are best at, playing, throwing pranks, wrestling, arguing, fighting, making up… But they would not be alone, the adults were as involved and animated. Playing badminton, singles, doubles and mixed doubles, used to be their favorite. Those not into sport would just sit in a huddle and talk their hearts out. All in all, everyone would be out in the evenings and everyone would be together, in a community setting. In this kind of a scenario, depression, negativity, self-harm… well, such emotional states did not stand a chance. The community was always at hand to take care of and cheer up one of them not feeling particularly well on one of those days. Those were blessed times.

Contrast these with the scenario in the times we are now living in. Technology surely has made life easier for us but at the same time, we are lesser of human beings. The art of communication, the actual talk that happens between two human beings, has vanished. The new normal is texting, social media, virtual thumbs ups and likes. No one picks up the phone to say how much they love and appreciate the other person, people hardly meet up, they seldom bare themselves, one-on-one. It is a catastrophe of interpersonal relationships that is not waiting to happen, it has already engulfed us. The way things are going, it is very scary to imagine what is in store for our children up ahead.

Skeletons are now tumbling out of the closet. The industry dealt this multifaceted, exceptionally talented young man a raw deal, just because he was ‘an outsider’, and not one of the star-sons. In 2016, Sushant Singh Rajput, in a blockbuster biopic, gave genius of a performance, essaying the role of MS Dhoni, the exemplary captain of the Indian Cricket team, and regarded as the greatest finisher of all times that the game has seen. How tragic it is that Sushant could not provide a great finish to his own life story. It is gut-wrenching, soul-crushing. This is a huge wake-up call for all of us. For the sake of our children, for the sake of their future, let us move away from the fake virtual world and keep them away as well. Let us get back to the basics.

Lets try and become humans once again.

Lets start talking.

Because talking might save someone’s life!!

Read more at: https://yourstory.com/weekender/top-quotes-sushant-singh-rajput-life-living-bollywood?utm_pageloadtype=scroll