CAN NEPOTISM AND LOBBY CULTURE AFFECT ONE’S MENTAL HEALTH?

One look at Abhay Deol’s Instagram feed and you’d notice the actor has been revisiting his earlier films — Ek Chaalis Ki Last Local, Manorama Six Feet Under (both 2007), Dev D, Road (both 2009) — and sharing a story behind them, with the hashtag #makingwhatbollywouldnt.

“I felt this was a good way to bring attention to these movies. Being non-formulaic, they didn’t have enough funds for marketing or a big release. So, not a lot of people are aware of them. I believe they’re good and that they’d be entertaining even today” he tells us.

Elaborating on the hashtag, he adds, “The ones I selected for this particular hashtag are the ones that were the most difficult to make and even tougher to release.”

However, it’s his recent post on Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (ZNMD; 2011) that garnered the maximum traction, where Deol called out “covert and overt ways in which people in the industry lobby against you”.

“This was clearly an overt example. They didn’t even bother hiding their bias, something that they normally take efforts to do,” he says, adding, “Lobby culture has been prevalent for decades. No one thinks about standing up, or bothering to do anything. They’re all ready to conform, which is why they know that they can get away with it. The reason I can say this is because

It’s a highly competitive space where people are insecure and you’ll often hear them say, ‘your failure is my success’. So, people planting false stories about you, paid-for reviews being negative, gas-lighting you within the industry to sabotage you, robbing you of a nomination or a win at an award show — these are some of the ways in which it happens. Now, imagine a person with a mental illness being thrown in this toxic environment. For sure, it would take a toll. They’re, after all, more vulnerable.

I grew up in a film family and I’ve heard of these games. As a kid, I saw through other people’s experiences, and now, I’ve seen it myself.”

Given that Deol’s post comes in wake of Sushant Singh Rajput’s death, after which many are slamming nepotism and lobbying culture in the film industry, he admits that Rajput’s death shook him up and got him thinking.

“Sushant’s death definitely sort of pushed me to speak up a little bit. But, this isn’t my first time speaking up. In the past, I’ve taken on the biggest. I’m sorry it took someone’s death to wake everybody up. But I’m glad that people have taken note and they want to be heard. What’s good today is that actors are speaking out. I had become quiet because I didn’t want to be the only one screaming. I alone couldn’t have brought about the change we need.”

He shares many commented on his post saying ‘Oh, you’re waking up now’, and he tells them he had put his career on the line from day one. “I focus on my privileges. I have a family, great friends, I have work, I’m acting, producing, working in two countries. I found my path,” he says.

In his post, Deol also called out award functions for they “demoted me and Farhan (Akhtar) from main leads to supporting actors”. But he says, he wasn’t surprised.

“It was a disappointment. By the time ZNMD came out, I was trying to be less idealistic, and more of a realist. Very rarely I had gone to these award functions. I was coming around to see the industry’s point of view and suddenly, this was a hard reminder of the systemic corruption that exists in the industry. Positioning was based on market value of the artiste not on the structure of the plot of the movie. And the shocking thing is that it was all accepted because that’s the way the industry functions,” he asserts.

PHOTO: INSTAGRAM