The tragic demise of Sushant Singh Rajput has reignited the ‘nepotism’ debate in Bollywood. Why Sushant took the extreme step, we will perhaps never know but the media, however, was quick to diagnose that his clinical depression was caused by systematic alienation, loss of work, and Bollywood rivalries. This was largely based on a few tweets by people within the industry who spoke of films he had lost and his disappointment with the people responsible.
Within hours, social media was flooded with messages on mental health. But here’s the problem. While people were talking about being kind and empathizing, a large section of social media took it upon themselves to attack those who they felt were morally accountable. If they are responsible, and truly did lead a vicious boycott campaign (which there is no proof of yet), they bear the burden of guilt but dragging them further with the nasty comments on Instagram and accusatory tweets could well destroy the one thing everyone is unanimously talking to protect, their mental health.
Yes, nepotism is a problem. Honest, hardworking, and extremely talented people may not get the break they deserve because they don’t have the ‘connections’ that are handed down to star kids on a platter. Roles should be given to people who are talented, who are skilled in their art. And while many from the fraternity have come and said that nepotism is everywhere, nowhere does it have more of an impact as it does is in the movies, largely because millions of people have access to them, and many aspirations are built on what they see.
A cricketer will not be given a spot in the national team only because he is the son of a legendary player, he gets it with sheer hard work and skill and that is ideally how it should be with cinema. Because like cricket, cinema puts India on the map, and for that alone, they have to be held more accountable than other industries. It starts with us, the audience, the society, and to a large extent the media. We pander to the likes of celebrities and when their children are presented to the world there is no question that they get much more attention than they either want or deserve. What else can justify the nation’s collective obsession with Taimur?
A producer who knows making a movie with Taimur already guarantees a large and loyal audience base, will naturally, in the interest of business, cast him. Social media has made stars of the teenage children of tinsel town biggies long before they make their debuts. Millions of followers who want a front-row seat to their lives are consuming their posts, why then wouldn’t brands choose to hire them and magazines choose to feature them with a ready and lapping audience like that.
To vilify Alia Bhatt or Sonam Kapoor for responding to a silly question on a chat show amounts to hypocrisy, considering that very same chat show has had very successful seasons in terms of viewership, again by people like us.
How many of us chose to watch Sushant’s brilliant Sonchiraiya in the hall? Is that number even half as compared to that of Tiger Shroff, Ananya Panday, and Tara Sutaria’s below mediocre Student of the Year 2 which released only a month or so later? We cannot berate people for being on a pedestal that we put them on. By all accounts, Sushant has been portrayed as a brilliant man, passionate about astronomy, physics, and philosophy. An avid reader, a curious soul, and of course a brilliant actor. His success wasn’t enough to satiate him and he didn’t fit the quintessential box.
Unacceptance in a world where anything different is looked down upon may have done him in and nepotism may well have been the cause but as audiences, we are also responsible. We celebrate him today after he’s gone, but his true legacy will live on only when we as an audience give as much of a chance to a boy from Patna as we would to a superstar’s child.