A bully's world: Why ‘Miss you, Sushant’ messages from Bollywood’s who’s who seem hollow

(Image: Twitter @itsSSR)

Kurt Cobain spoke the truth when he sang, ‘Here we are now, entertain us, I feel stupid and contagious’ ... Over the last week, I’ve scrolled and scrolled and read so much on this wholly unexpected death by suicide of a young man who seemed to have everything. Everyone descended on this ‘news’ like vultures. You saw it, you heard it and you shared your point of view on social media. Hashtags trended (they still are as I write this) and you realised you had inadvertently taken sides.

Am sure you took the high road and did not see the pictures of the dead man, nor did you forward them. But you must plead guilty of speculation, of sudden concern of others you know who are living alone in this lockdown, and you texted them, ‘Are you okay?’

Sushant Singh Rajput’s death unleashed a storm of angry tweets and Facebook posts blaming the Bollywood cliques that wouldn’t let him be included. Actors like Kangna speaking bitterly, others reacting to Aalia Bhatt and other star kids, accusing them of bullying and nepotism which they assumed killed the lad. There were self-appointed social media experts who connected his earlier break-ups and antecedents (as though being a ‘Bihari’ somehow became a reason to be depressed) to the ‘event’ that became ‘breaking news’. As Cobain sings, ‘Hello, hello, hello how low?’

And then everyone began to rationalise their feelings. ‘It is a cut-throat business, he was too sensitive.’, ‘Bollywood has always had its share of bullying’...

It made me angry. Really angry. The last time a celebrity death affected me this much was when Amy Winehouse was found dead of alcohol poisoning. In 2011 when her ‘Back To Black’ had become my go-to song, she was sending signals which everyone missed. Bullying has been around before Mean Girls and gossip rags. If you but google the story of how Lata Mangeshkar ended up singing ‘Ae Mere Vatan Ke Logon’ instead of her sister Asha in 1963 you will realise that there are so many tales of how they managed to push all other singers and stayed on top of the game. If a Vani Jayram should show up on the radar, they would not work with the producers again. There are stories of how voices in duets were erased and re-recorded because one of the sisters wanted the limelight.

Bollywood has always suffered the tantrums of the A Listers and put down someone who had humble beginnings. Today you hear about how so and so star will not appear for an award show if they are not getting an award. I know that journalists are expected to visit star homes to invite them to the awards functions; that they have to wait patiently for a promised interview for hours, and that stars are not expected to apologise for those delays...But star bullies are not news. Jumping Jack Jeetendra and the gorgeous Shashi Kapoor would not want to work with Mumtaz because of her ‘B grade’ actor status. It took cojones from V Shantaram who told Jeetendra that he is welcome to leave Boond Jo Ban Gaye Moti because Mumtaz was going to be the heroine. Shashi Kapoor too had to swallow his pride and later ask Mumtaz to work in a film. Saccha Jhootha was given to Rajesh Khanna… But don’t go by my word, it’s out there in the film magazines of the time.

Rajesh Khanna did turn into a bully when he became the first ‘superstar’, telling the director the script should be changed so that Rajesh Khanna’s character in Namak Haraam dies instead of the original planned story where Amitabh Bachchan’s character dies. Why? Because Rajesh Khanna believed that ‘dying’ in a movie would bring sympathy from the viewers, just as it had in Anand. The script was changed because Rajesh Khanna was a ‘big’ name but in the end people remember Amitabh Bachchan’s acting in the film.

Once upon a time, Bollywood bullies were the parents of the stars. Once it was Madhubala’s dad Ataullah Khan who signed her up for all kinds of movies (quality be damned) and even interfered in her love for Dilip Kumar. Hema Malini’s mother was a constant presence at all her shoots so that she could keep an eye on her daughter and also to ensure she was being treated well. The fact that producers even today have to bear the costs of the star’s entourage is well documented. If they want that particular star, then they would have to pay for the price!

As corporate entities entered the industry and ROI became a requirement in movies, star kids realised how much their star presence in the movies meant to the company image. Of course, you saw plenty of films where you knew the ‘management’ was bullying their way into the creative aspects of the film. The results were disastrous. Not only did you suddenly see the characters in the movie selling a particular brand of rice as if it were an ad placed in the middle of the film, but you saw strange power equations between media houses and starlets.

Everyone will tell you stars (actors as well as directors) hold their own ‘durbars’. You have to first join the coterie, and your slavish devotion will earn you a nod so you can put forward your script or role request or a job in the production houses. They don’t call newcomers 'strugglers’ just like that. They are like the Japanese salaryman, having to spend all their time with colleagues and the bosses just to hold on to their jobs...You need a cast-iron constitution to digest insults to your very soul every day. It’s not that outsiders don’t ever make it big. They do. But they can’t be held responsible for every new person who shows up with stars in their eyes, can they?

With Sushant Singh’s death, people have come out swinging. Some with anger out of realisation that here was a young man who could have had the world and the stars, had succumbed to a spiral that made him believe he was nothing. Depression does that to people. Some, like Kangna, are using his death to hit out against the known cliques. You have to wonder if all that anger is because she has not been admitted to that club? Did she forget that she once treated young Adhyayan Suman rather badly herself? Yes, there are videos of Karan Johar et al making fun of the ‘others’, and that’s why the tweets from these shiny happy people expressing their grief and saying, ‘Miss you, Sushant’ seem to be hollow and ridiculous.

This sudden need for ‘speaking up’ has now brought attention to others like Salman Khan and his brothers, bullying directors, his co-stars, and yes, also how Salman behaved with his girlfriends. These are old wounds being scratched open, the hurt being put on display for everyone who has access to the internet. Bullying isn’t a new phenomenon. It’s just that more people have access to the record of this bad behaviour that simply does not get erased from the archives. It’s not that I am denying that you were bullied, but opening up at the death of a young man seems rather distasteful and opportunistic. It’s like carrying an ‘All Lives Matter’ banner at a ‘Black Lives Matter’ rally. Thankfully there are friends of Sushant Singh Rajput like Rohini Iyer who have spoken rather eloquently about the lad.

We may never know why he took that drastic step that fateful night. He left no note behind to help us understand him. To lessen our collective guilt. There is going to be a lot of finger pointing. A fallout as well. But everyone in the film industry must admit that they are all a little complicit in this tragedy. That there are no innocent bystanders here.

As always, there’s poetry that offers gyaan about this business, and I quote Mayank Awasthi: