Social media unleashes the wild beast in us, especially when it has to do with an incident of an unfortunate death of a celebrity. Though actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death may be shocking and unexpected in the wildest of dreams, the reactions to the same on social media are not surprising to say the least. Several noted personalities on Twitter went onto share the images of his dead body, the visuals of the media barging into his parents’ house in Patna were repetitively aired. Prominent producers, actors and directors were shedding crocodile tears about not being there for the actor in the need of the hour. Sensitivity is the last thing one could expect out of social media these days.
Producers like Nikhil Dwivedi, director Shekhar Kapur (who was scheduled to make a film Paani with him, which later got shelved) later took a dig against the crème de la crème of the industry for their hypocrisy. Kangana’s video post on the issue, discussing the injustice meted to outsiders from the industry and of course nepotism, was hard-hitting and the need of the hour. There have been several theories floating around the reason behind his death – about two major Bollywood production houses banning Sushant from their films, a filmmaker ousting him from a major project, all of it despite the actor managing to deliver a hit like Chichore that brought about Rs 150 crore to its producers last year. Unfortunately, we’ll never know what the 34-year-old actor must have gone through.
Many have shared about his love for science and its relation with epic Indian literature as well. A few viewers went back to his films to relive the impact he had created. There’s a reason why so many have taken the actor’s death personally. He felt like one among the many millennials in this generation – talented, hailing from a middle class background, someone who chose a creative profession over engineering, who slogged his way to achieve his dream, fulfilled it and had everything in him to scale the required heights, but was let down by the vagaries in life every common man is bound to face. He strived hard to be the ‘uncommon’ among the common. His growth as an actor was organic from Kai Po Che to Chichore, his story gave many newcomers the hope to make it big.
His death is an unfortunate reality check – he was like the enthusiastic child who grew up amidst us, one in our family whom we have never met but one we always wanted to make it big and visualised our dreams through him. We thought that the foundation was set for his glory though all such hopes were suddenly crashed on June 14. He was denied an opportunity to traverse to the next stage and it’s natural that we, the average viewers, are hurt. It’s the travesty of life that tough times expose true colours of humanity. Sushant Singh Rajput’s last release will be Dil Bechara on Disney+ Hotstar, one fine opportunity to re-understand why we cherish his presence, one last time. ‘Sushant lives on’ are words that seem so hard to utter.
