Is Suicide the Final Word in the Tinsel Town?

Even though Anjali Agnihotri in her suicide note wrote that nobody is responsible for her suicide and that she loved her family, son and husband, psychologists do believe that the final step when chosen is the one filled with utmost grief and despair and the lack of someone to hold onto, as is evident in Varsha Bhonsle’s case. Varsha, a singer and columnist, had married a sports writer and Public relations professional, a marriage that ended in a divorce in 1998. She later on wanted to start an orphanage, a dream that too vanquished with fashion photographer Gautam Rajadhyaksha’s demise. Many believed that she was quite close to him and went into depression post the episode and had tried ending her life in the 2 months prior to her death. However, finally at the age of 56 , she shot herself at the temple with a Belgian-make pistol. A waste of life, the anxiety, loneliness and depression ate away the talent and gave negativity in return.

To go in the past, one can easily remember how starlets Silk Smitha and Nafisa Joseph ended their lives, in fact even though Smitha’s death left question marks left unanswered, Nafisa Joseph, despite being a high flying model, a Miss India pageant winner with a promising future ended her life after matters of the heart went haywire.

Same was the case with model Viveka Babajee. Yes, the Kama Sutra model tried her hand at Event Management too, but her tumultuous relationship with Gautam Vohra made her take the drastic step. As she wrote in her suicide note “You killed me Gautam Vohra”.

Siddharth Bedi, Kabir Bedi’s computer programmer son working in an MNC too ended his life, all at just 26. Suffering from Schizophrenia, one could guess that Siddharth may have been at the wrong side of a disjointed family, yes he was Protima Bedi’s son, Kabir’s first wife.

Even Monika Chaudhary, Jagjit Singh’s step daughter was the victim of such a family crisis. Born out of Chitra Singh’s first marriage, Monika was a model herself but 2 failed marriages were perhaps too much for her to handle. In fact, one also feels that the family lineage were something that Varsha, Siddharth and Monika were not able to live up to.

Delving a bit more into the inglorious past and cases of Parveen Babi and tragedy queen Meena Kumaari come into spotlight. While they both had estranged relationships to take care of, a thing that led Parveen Babi to the world of schizophrenia and Meena Kumari into abusing herself with alcohol all around. The situation was so gruesome in case of the latter that there was no money left to even pay the hospital bills at her death. Mahesh Bhatt, did went ahead and gave us Woh Lamhe, a movie outlining his relationship with Babi.

Yes, the demands and challenges of the industry filled with glitz and glamour are hard and the weak at heart tend to succumb to these negativities, however, therapists use a variety of techniques to help individuals cope with such stress.

One of these is ‘positive memory’, where one is encouraged to think of a happy, life-enhancing memory whenever one feels overwhelmed by stress. And a similar approach is ‘positive imaging’ where one is directed by the therapist to look at the best case scenario. When one is under stress, it’s too easy to take the overwhelmingly negative viewpoint- to see everything in terms of black and grey. Thus, its here that Positive Imaging encourages one to think about the good things that can come out in any situation.

So now you know what you need to do the next time you think of all the evils. And do remember a cliché notion that its all by God’s mercy and if the life isn’t going as per your plans now, there might be his plan in the action mode. So keep working and striving hard keeping him in your conscious day in and day out. Just Chill !!