Sushant and the fault in our stars!
When I first heard about an Indian remake of ‘The Fault in our stars’ (though I am not an ardent fan), my honest reaction was that they’ll just ruin the movie but at least it will be watchable because of Sushant. Today as well the only reason I watched it, was Sushant, but the magnitude of that feeling was drastically magnified.
I am not a very sentimental person when it comes to reality. I hardly ever cry. But the demise of Sushant Singh Rajput has affected me in ways which even I wasn’t aware of. Maybe because I resonated with him. His thoughts and ideas were a successful projection of myself. Being a pessimist, I never really see world or strive to conquer it in ways which the society approves of. So when I saw someone, different than the normal crowd, unique in his own ways, achieve that society driven pedestal, it gave me a weird satisfaction, igniting a tiny ray of positivity that the world isn’t that unfair after all. But, boy, what an idiot I was.
I know the inevitability of death and the paradoxical feelings which it brings along. So making peace with death is manageable but making peace with the way he died is what troubles me.
Sushant was like a manifestation of the kind of people I would like to see the world populated with. So when someone like him chooses the abyss of death rather than the chains of life, it just shatters my entire idea of being, my entire idea of this world.
With no nuance of arrogance, I would like to mention that I hardly follow Bollywood. Being a movie buff, I love watching films, but I don’t really follow this glamorous world as the media tries to feed it. Sushant is the only new age Bollywood celebrity I follow on social media and I genuinely loved reading his posts. For I would occasionally see some beautiful telescopic vision or some other time chance upon a mesmerizing piece of shayari. Another day I’ll find a quote of Nietzsche, which I might was acquainted with and yet another day I would see him pursuing one of his many dreams. It was simply a surreal feeling to know someone like him existed amidst a world full of plastic pouts.
Many people find it weird, even I do occasionally, as in how you could feel for someone who doesn’t even know you. For if the tables were turned, that person would not have been affected at all. But this is because we have created such huge barriers between success and mediocrity that we fail to understand that it is our envy talking. An artist projects his art and becomes known to a larger audience than a common man ever does. A common man has his own impact in the balance of this universe. For beyond this tiny world of human interactions lies a vast universe ignorant of our ideas and notions of mourning and death. And for that cosmic entity, a soul is a soul. Art creates and envy destroys. Art heals but arrogance wounds.
And yes, Anne Frank has rightly said,
‘Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because regret is greater than gratitude’.
It is extremely true. Had he been alive, my reaction to this movie would have been different. I cannot really tell what it would have been as the impact the movie has created is beyond words. But, it is equally true that no one knows what another person goes through in his/her life. We can’t really say what our friends are going through so talking about celebrities is far-fetched. Thus, I believe, when someone dies an unnatural death, a wound in your heart rips open as well and in that moment you could resonate with that friend or celebrity alike, and in that very moment your regret of not being able to see the inevitable makes you sad in a completely absurd way. And I believe there is nothing wrong in that. No one can be a perfect human being. The quicker we make peace with that the better.
And God knows, each one of us would have loved to remain ignorant if that would have kept him alive.
Coming back to the movie, I have no words. It would always remain special to me in a very bittersweet way. As many of his other films, he somehow managed to convey his real story from behind the lenses in this as well, but with a much larger ruthless sentimentality, the last fifteen minutes being the perfect farewell anyone could have asked for. I loved how Kai Po Che’s ending resonated with Dil Bechara’s proving how coincidentally everything is weaved off in a circle.
Though I am extremely saddened by the fact that I won’t be seeing him bringing anymore characters to life again, I will continue to cherish whatever legacy he has created.
Lastly, all I could say is, Sushant was a star who came as a twinkle in this world and went back to infinity, looping us forever in it.
‘It was a privilege to have my heart broken by you, Sushant Singh Rajput.’
