Apurva Asrani: My fight for Sushant Singh Rajput is not born out of vendetta for anyone

It is a pretty tricky situation. You need to be nice to them, make sure you don’t offend them, and they interpret it as you being easy. There really is no winning this one. 

Success Denied

Also remember, here, if you don’t pander to the whims of the powerful, you are a trouble maker. If you speak up against unfair practices, you are a trouble maker. Watch Sushant in so many of those film promotion videos, he is pretty much ignored by the fraternity. I wish he had spoken up. But he may have taken the advice of ‘well wishers’ who easily dispense advice like, ‘don’t talk, let your success do the talking’. So the boy marched on. Inspite of not having the support of his peers, he gave his all to a film called Chichore. The film was made by the director of the successful Dangal and the expectations were high. But surprisingly, it opened to average reviews, and the general buzz on the film was poor. It was only after Sushant’s death, that I learned that the film had been a hit, and had grossed over 200 crores!

Now when an ‘A list’ actor’s film just about breaks even, the occasion is celebrated by splashing the actor all over the press. New associations spring up. Big films are signed. Other stars photograph with you. I saw hardly any of this in Sushant’s case. And this begged the question; Was he denied his hard-earned success by his peers? Was the stupendous performance of his film underplayed? Could this disappointment, that nothing he did would ever make it right, be the final straw for him?

Was Sushant An Unstable Person?

Right now, the few that are responding to my tweets are chiding me for having an hidden agenda. Some are saying that I am derailing the conversation on Sushant’s mental health. 

It shocks me, that people who didn’t really know Sushant, didn’t know his mental health status, want to close this conversation by labelling him as an unstable person. An actress I kind of respect, said to me on Twitter that she was sure it was depression that killed Sushant. She added that depression is something you are born with and it cannot be caused by external situations. I told her that this is absolutely UNTRUE! 

While there are clinical and hereditary factors that could cause certain types of mental illnesses, ANYONE can become depressed without pre existing conditions. It is also a fact that environmental factors can play an important part in the onset of depression.

Depression can be triggered by bullying too. A large number of LGBTQI people suffer from depression because they have been bullied or abused. I can tell you for a fact that I have no family history of depression, but I still underwent 6 months of severe depression after the Simran episode. It is very likely, looking at the blind items, at at the lack of camaraderie with Sushant at film events, at the jokes on talk shows made at his expense, that he felt bullied. Why is there such reluctance to even have this conversation??

Going Forward

I contacted a few publications to carry this article, but either they didn’t respond, or they seemed in no hurry to take this forward. This is one of the reasons I decided to resurrect my blog after seven long years. I feel determined to continue this fight, because I can sense that the public isn’t giving this one up. Sushant was one of us. His death has affected people in the depth of their hearts. This isn’t like some trending hashtag that will disappear on a twitter timeline. It is an important fight, not only for justice for Sushant, but to ensure that no innocent talent gets snuffed out by an abusive and unfeeling system again. 

Maybe your words don’t have the power to kill somebody, but they certainly have the power to chip away at a spirit that is trying hard to stay alive.

Apurva also thanked actors like Manoj Bajpayee for standing for him and supporting him constantly.

The writer-editor has films like ‘Satya’, ‘Shahid’ and ‘Aligarh’ to his credit. He has also edited the hit web-series ‘Made In Heaven’.

Also Read: Apurva Asrani schools Soni Razdan; says, “Its unfair to diagnose Sushant Singh Rajput’s depression on Twitter”