 |
"मैं जाड़ो के महीने की तरह
और तुम हो पशमीने की तरह
मैं दीवारों की तरह हूँ,
तुम जैसे हो दरीचा
मैं बगीचा जो तुमने सींचा"
~ amitabh bhattacharya | ar rahman
I was in the kitchen when a dear friend of mine messaged me about Sushant Sigh Rajput's death. I read that message and re-read it. And then I read it again. It could not be true. It simply could not be true.
The spread of the virus and the ensuing lockdown was tough on many sections of the society, the very vulnerable and fragile in economic terms were of course the worst affected. However, emotionally and mentally it was taking a toll on all of us. I would often jokingly tell my mom - I wish i did not have to step out of the house, I wish i could laze in my home clothes and not have to bathe until 11 am, and put oil in my hair and chill. Well, I got my wish, not in the way I wanted of course. I however have been one of the few lucky ones in India who is relatively unaffected by the ill effects of an extended lockdown in terms of economic and physical safety. But when it comes to mental health and emotional well-being, i join millions around the world feeling acutely the deep need for companionship and social contact and frankly just the vibrancy of the chaotic world, what now in retrospect seems to have been a very rhythmic flow. I've never been one to not know how to sit alone and be with myself. I love it. Those are some of my most creative moments and I cherish them. But this time it was different, I was finding myself being paranoid, a bit pessimistic and edgy. I wondered how the extroverts out there were dealing with this period.
After a while though, it got better. Or maybe it got worse, in the sense that nothing bothered me anymore. There have been a few deaths in Bollywood this year - of many noted personalities. But nothing shook me like Sushant's death. After I read that message, i felt the world around me ceased to exist, I was in this space of not feeling anything, but also very minutely feeling my breath enter and exit the body. Almost like what I feel when Im in deep meditation - nothing existed outside of this space I was holding within me. The whole universe - all aspects of it - all joys, all sorrows, all dreams - everything within me. I was the container of everything- all and every sound in the world and beyond, which would only sound like silence if I were to put it out. I stood in my mother's kitchen and read that message for the fourth time and then wrote back telling my friend, it was not true. I knew it was, in that silence that had enveloped me a couple of seconds ago, I knew it to be true and yet when I came back to the reality of the world, to flour and butter on my hands, i was wishing for it to be untrue.
It was one of the few times i wanted to walk away from a baking endeavour. It was the first time the process was not helping me. I wanted to hide away, to go far away from the kitchen. I willed myself to complete that cake, which turned out to be a disaster anyway. I pushed the thought of Sushant's death far away from my head for the rest of the day and the evening. But that night, i opened YouTube and played a song from M.S. Dhoni and i broke down.
I was not alone, this personal sense of loss I was feeling was shared by many many Indians and also non-Indians who had known and loved Sushant exactly how I had - through his on-screen characters and a few honest interviews where he let tiny aspects of his personality shine through. Why were we all feeling as though we had known and lived alongside this person all this while? That we were equal partners in his success and deserved every praise he got but also were intolerant of and deeply affected by any criticism coming his way? It couldn't be the simple fact that he was an "outsider" in the industry and had achieved much success and that we felt a sense of connection with the "underdog". There were many others who had achieved many feats as outsiders, but no one had touched us the way Sushant had.
For a brief moment I thought there was something wrong with me, until I went onto Instagram and saw the outpouring of grief and the intense ache many others were feeling. I felt connected to each aching heart that night. The next morning I could not shake off that feeling of having lost a part of me, a part of my innocent belief in the world and in good. A friend and I got onto a call and we sobbed like small girls, stopping and gasping for air before succumbing to another loud and painful bout of sobs.
Some of us felt betrayed by the industry that might have caused Sushant so much pain to think that taking his life was his only out and only chance at peace. Some of us are overwhelmed by the deaths in Bollywood, many other accomplished greats having left us during the lockdown - there are a bunch of reasons why we were feeling this in this depth and with this intensity.
I can speak only for myself. For me Sushant represented a freshness of thought and perspective that not many in the industry have. He also was so much more than just an actor - he was a whole another person, in fact many different people along with being Sushant Singh Rajput, a Bollywood actor. I did not always think this way about him. I remember coming across his Twitter handle one day and seeing a tweet about books. I love books and in my mind, a person who connects with books connects with themselves. I scrolled and found that he runs a Book Club . It blew my mind. The titles and his reviews and him pushing his followers to find the hidden messages in some books and him trying to tie pieces of life together with concepts in books really spoke to me. I try to find meaning in all books, in fact I try to find meaning in everything that surrounds me - in everything that has happened to me and in everything that has not. In all the decisions and choices I have made and those that I haven't. To me, there is a link between everything and everyone who lives and breaths in this Universe. There is more than the human eye can see, there are layers waiting to be peeled and magic waiting to be discovered, if only you feel the inclination and urge to follow that calling.
And I found the same curiosity and depth in Sushant's explanations or the way he spoke about mundane occurrences - in the most non-mundane of ways. Like everything was remarkable. In some interviews you saw his eyes light up, when he stumbled upon something in the course of him answering a mundane question from a film journalist. You could almost see his eyes asking the interviewer : "did you see that? do you get that? Are you understanding what Im understanding of this?". I connect with that "omg, can you believe this ...." energy when you discover those links between the people and life and events and stories.
However, more often than not, I have also been a part of situations where people don't get it. They don't see the flash of light you are seeing, those breadcrumbs never form a trail that leads home for most people. The gorgeousness about thinking about these things and arriving on these revelations, is the underlying joy in sharing that with others. That's the reason I write.
I write so I can share these dots that are always joining in my head - as though eventually they will lead me to the truth, to peace. I write for unknown readers because if I did not share what is in my head and the way I think, it would mostly drive me mad. I write because when i am in trouble or in pain, it soothes me. Almost as if sharing what's happening and what i am thinking alleviates the pain and the intense experience of living through whatever I am living through. When i can't really share exactly what's happening, I make a story, I write about love, loss, dreams, hope and friends and family. And somewhere in each of my characters I put a little bit of what I am feeling, of what I have lived through. That is my outlet, because when I talk about this in real life to real people, in person, most folks don't get it.
Most folks did not get Sushant too. They thought him odd, he was an over thinker who would hide behind words and tweets that were incomprehensible, he was shy and awkward. But he was an artist. He put his energy, his curiosity, his dreams and his thoughts - all into his art. Which is why I connected with his performances. They had a lived-in quality. I have the enthusiasm and effervescence and the unshakeable belief of Ishaan from Kai Po Che. I have the nonchalance of Raghu from Shudh Desi Romance, I have his indecisiveness and his quality of freaking out before embarking on a decision I have taken for myself. I have the awkwardness of Byomkesh Bakshi and the quality of being in flow and completely involved with my projects so much so that i forget to sleep, eat, bathe. I have the stupidity and the bollywood-dialogue throwing-ness of Shiv from Raabta and i have the immense belief and love for my work and dreams that Dhoni has from MS Dhoni.
I watched Dhoni and wept in the theatre. I have sat at crowded train stations and malls in Singapore after an utterly useless day at work, my heart full of dreams and wants, with 0 idea of how my daily life was going to evolve into the life I want to live. When I saw this scene, I wanted to get up from my seat and go into the screen in the movie hall and hug Sushant. I wanted him to tell me I would finally find my way and I wanted to tell him, he'll find his way too. That, exactly like what the scenes says, this particular time in life is an unplayable bouncer and all we need to do is duck. I wish I could tell him that the night before he decided that he couldn't even duck anymore.
The other reason i connect so deeply with Sushant and so deeply with why he thought he couldn't go on anymore, was because I have been there. Depression is hard, and it can not be explained in words to other people. It creeps up on you even when you are living your "full life". It can come hold onto the edges of your pretty little dress as you sit amongst people you love, celebrating achievements. It can suddenly catch hold of you in an office meeting where the only recourse you have is to rush to the nearest washroom and let it out and splash some water on your face before walking back to your cubicle. It doesn't see the time of the day, it doesn't see how much money you have in your bank account or even the number of people who love you. And often it leaves, in the wake of its attack, an immense tiredness, as though nothing anymore can help you get out of this feeling of being so utterly alone. I have sat on my terrace on some nights and watched the stars and talked to them, read out my poems to them - when I couldn't even post my poems out on this blog. As for why Sushant did this, I understand. I wish he had overcome that tiny second of doubt and hopelessness, just as he would have on many previous nights. Just as I had. I wish he had someone he could call, someone who would pick up. Just as I had someone to reach out to. Because of which I am here today, writing this.
My best friend and I often talk about how we totally do not fit into this world. These ideas people have of success, the ideas of happiness and also these ideas of love. If I did not have him, I would think I was mad. To think the thoughts I think, to feel things and situations with the intensity with which I feel them. For having unreal mad dreams and having the courage to run after them, for identifying a spark or a moment of joy, for what it us - a piece of the universe flashing its smile to us, before disappearing. I have another best friend, who I can say anything to and be completely understood, I can curse, judge, cry, hurt and dance and she will hold space for me. If I did not have them I would feel so alone in this world, in spite of having many other loving friends and family. I would live with an overwhelming sense of not being understood. I will never know what Sushant felt, but if he felt some semblance of what i feel in times when my deepest fears take over, when I feel like nothing I do will ever come to anything, that I will go to my grave with all these unexpressed dreams, I understand why he thought he couldn't go on.
His death did not leave me for a long time. It still hasn't. The entertainment media and their hawk-like behaviour is not the reason why he lives in my heart still. Even without the noise and the dirty blame-game that one sees around in the media, Sushant and his face and his words and his characters continue to be vibrant in my heart and mind. After many days of mourning, as I started becoming more myself, I could revisit his work with love instead of with overwhelming sadness. But i would always end his movies sobbing. The wound was still fresh and will remain so for a long time. And I am not alone in this grief, this community that i have found that shares this pain, is in a way comforting because it affirms my faith in people and in life - that there are others like me, there are others whom this has affected deeply, there are others who feel so connected with Sushant - it may not be for the same reasons as mine, but they still feel it as acutely as i do.
I can now message a friend or two randomly in the middle of the day and tell them - "hey I am missing Sushant, a lot". And they will respond with "I know nayana, i can understand that, i miss him too". And that is perfectly ok, they get me, they get the origin of that emotion, they can understand how it travels up to my heart and creates an ache and a longing. And in some way, in this community, together we keep him alive in our hearts.
As the fault in our stars released this weekend, and I have "Main Tumhara " playing on loop for the last two days, a part of me wants to see him come alive on screen once more and yet a part of me wants to never watch the movie, so that i will always keep him alive in there.
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings". For Sushant, the fault was neither in his stars, neither was he an "underling", it was not a reflection of his character, or his will power or his strength - emotional or mental. The stars, he so deeply loved did not betray him. Somewhere we did, collectively as a society we have failed him, and have failed many others like him. There are days I fail myself. But Sushant will always remind me to duck when I get an unplayable ball, he only makes me stronger, he gives me the courage to be who I am in the world, without apology, to follow my dreams and work hard on them and to never give up on the magic of the universe.
I love you Sushant, I always will and you will always remain a star in my heart, which in my darkest moonless nights will show me the light, even if it's the only light I see.
"तुम न हुए मेरे तो क्या
मैं तुम्हारा मैं तुम्हारा मैं तुम्हारा रहा
मेरे चंदा मैं तुम्हारा सितारा रहा
रिश्ता रहा बस रेत का
ऐ समुन्दर मैं तुम्हारा किनारा रहा
मैं तुम्हारा, मैं तुम्हारा, तुम्हारा रहा "
Comments
Post a Comment