JUNE 5- Fame is a toxic addiction – a cocktail of wealth and popularity that goads you to climb higher and higher up the showbiz ladder. If you know how to ruthlessly keep climbing, you become a demigod.
If you don’t, it often leaves your emotions and self- esteem in a shambles.
Jiah Khan didn’t, and she paid for it with her life.
Jiah, 25, was found hanging at her posh residence in Juhu, Mumbai, on Monday night. Sources close to the three-film-old sultry starlet said she had lately been depressed over personal issues.
On Tuesday, following confirmation of her suicide, cops took to questioning actor Aditya Pancholi’s son Sooraj, who was reportedly dating Jiah for a while.It is not yet clear if Jiah’s suicide is an outcome of a failed romance or of being rejected in a recent audition for a Telugu film (she has had no new film in hand since Sajid Khan’s Housefull, her last release in 2010).The answer could be both, going by a line Ram Gopal Varma tweeted. “The last time I met her, Jiah told me that everyone around her makes her feel like a failure,” wrote RGV, who introduced her in his 2007 film, Nishabd.
Bad memories
As Bollywood took to tweeting its shock for most of the Tuesday, uncomfortable memories of many other such untimely deaths driven by a destructive streak started trickling into every mind.
Jiah, whose real name was Nafisa, is not the first young female celebrity succumbing to the pressure of balancing professional dazzle with a collapsing personal life.
Over the recent past we have had models Nafisa Joseph and Viveka Babajee, and TV actress Kuljeet Randhawa as examples.
Tamil sex bomb Silk Smitha’s downfall on the path of self- destruction was brought alive brilliantly on screen by Vidya Balan in Milan Luthria’s The Dirty Picture .Parveen Babi’s body was discovered in her flat three days after she died, with gangrene on the left foot owing to a neglected diabetic condition.
Post-mortem revealed she had an empty stomach for several days and may have starved to death.Divya Bharti fell to her death from a highrise under mysterious circumstances in 1993. While most believe it was an accident, many claim she committed suicide after an altercation with husband Sajid Nadiadwala.
Farfetched theories also suggest murder because the actress had reportedly riled the underworld.All these women, like Jiah, were too young to die.Nafisa was 26, Viveka was 36, Kuljeet was 30, Silk Smitha was 35 and Divya was only 19.”Celebrities have a higher level of amplitude between good and bad work days than regular people,” reasoned leading psychiatrist Samir Parikh, on what causes vulnerable celebs like Jiah to snap.
” One hit and people are running after you for autographs, four flops and no one notices you. Hopelessness, worthlessness and helplessness therefore get augmented for celebrities. Their mistakes are glorified and personalities routinely degraded because they are always in the limelight.”
Rejection
“Depression owing to failed romance or a career not going right is common among women in showbiz.Nothing is ever consistent in their professional and personal lives. It creates a kind of stress that can go beyond control.Also, there is an inherent difference in the ways men and women handle failure. Men tend to look for excuses.
Women blame themselves,” says Prahlad Kakkar, image- consultant and ad guru who has closely observed the showbiz world for decades. For Jiah, the selfblame of rejection in love and work was clearly too strong to handle.’ Depression owing to failed romance or a career not going right is common among women in showbiz’
A look at movies in which Jiah worked:-
HOUSEFULL, 2010
Sajid Khan’s multistarrer comedy hit remains Jiah’s last release. Though she did not get much footage in the film, she is still remembered for her highlight beach scene which saw her in a skimpy bikini
GHAJINI, 2008
Jiah was cast as a medical student in A. R. Murugadoss’s psychological thriller starring Aamir Khan. Although she was the second female lead, Jiah’s character was important because the story of the protagonist is traced through her
NISHABD, 2007
Jiah made her debut with this Ram Gopal Varma film. She played an 18- year- old who falls for her friend’s 60- year- old father, Amitabh Bachchan. RGV’s desi version of Lolita bombed but Jiah garnered instant attention owing to her sultry image
