Dark side of fame

In the world of showbiz, behind the glitz and glamour lie fragile lives and emotions

Recently Alia Bhatt’s sister Shaheen opened up on thoughts about committing suicide. Not long ago, the suicide of popular Bollywood and TV actor Kushal Punjabi had sent shockwaves in Bollywood with one of his former co actors Akshay Kumar even announcing a film on his life. Financial issues or depression being unable to cope with the turmoil has often led to such cases in Bollywood. An early case was of the legendary Guru

Dutt who has made films like Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool. Dutt, in fact, made two unsuccessful suicide attempts earlier before he died the third time. When Manmohan Desai, director of films such as Amar Akbar Anthony, Coolie and Mard died, preliminary investigations also confirmed that he had committed suicide, though there were talks of him falling down from the balcony. Filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra also talks about the moment he really felt like ending his life. “My son does not even know about it. But there was a time when I was in Khandala and I was about to kill myself. I had become so disillusioned with this world. All of us go through a crisis of this sort,” admits Chopra. While there was a Divya Bharati who was said to have met a similar fate like Manmohan Desai, actresses like Nafisa Joseph, Jiah Khan, Kuljeet Randhawa, south star Silk Smitha on whom Vidya Balan did a biopic called The Dirty Picture, TV superstar Pratyusha Banerjee and model turned actress Viveka Babajee have been others from Bollywood who committed suicide. Interestingly, there have been a lot more actresses and actors from the south who have committed suicide. Music director A R Rahman who also hails from the south admitted that he too wanted to commit suicide when young and says that it is work of the devil. “If you allow the devil to come within you, you commit suicide. That is because there is a lack of self-esteem, you get depressed, you think you are not being loved and it is the devil’s work. If that person was alive, he could have served millions of people with his knowledge and experience. I was also a victim and thought of committing suicide when I was young and I thought that if I had died, there would have been no Vande Mataram, no Maa Tujhe Salaam and India would not have got two Oscars,” he confesses candidly.

I also had thoughts of committing suicide when I was young. If I had died, there would have been no Vande Mataram or Maa Tujhe Salaam.”

A.R. RAHMAN