So, it was not nepotism after all? for which so many celebrities or non-celebrities were hogging lime light with their bizarre posts? The tirade against Rhea that began right after Sushant Singh Rajput’s family came into light for raising doubts on his death, has now perhaps reached its climax. Amid the frenzied excitement about her arrest, just pause for a moment and think--why? why all the bitterness, the divide, the cheap gimmicks on nation news channels? Do you think all that rebuking, mud-slinging over nepotism was worth it? Are now the national news channels crying in orasmic pleasure and you in turn will feel titilated by the fact that the ruckus we all created has finally sent Rhea, the vampish girlfriend to jail? And for once, have we thought about- what is the case after all against Rhea Chakraborty?

COVID-19 has already brought harsher realities to the fore, most prominent being, again the deep divide within us as society. Tablighi Jamaat episode and the hullabaloo over it in the media reached a new low. And we thought news can’t go any lower. This is the deepest pit TV news reporting has sunk into. 

But no, we were wrong. The unfortunate death of a young and promising actor once again made the media bandwagon take another deeper dive into the dirt and mud slinging. There were so many angles to Sushant Singh Rajput’s death. The family went silent for a while and suddenly started crying foul. Then there was this raging debate over nepotism in the film industry. Then the girlfriend came in. Amid all this a feeble but firm voice about mental health concerns was stifled.

Mind you, that was the sanest voice. But no body paid attention. The girl friend seemed to be an easy target as is a habit in our society-to blame the woman for anything. And there is no doubt about the fact that our society is downright regressive misogynist and almost primitive. We have gone back in the centuries and are now living in a strange violent, ignorant times, when information is twisted as per convenience to present it as ‘truth’. And that truth keeps changing dramatically everyday. No body is ashamed of telling lies, no body is apologetic for being abusive, vulgar or violent. In fact all these have become qualities.

That we have stooped so low on national TV and on social media-is in itself a proof of our mental bankruptcy. The pressure of winning TRPs is understood but is it the only thing to be kept in mind while reporting? Has the ‘journalistic ethics’ gone completely to the dogs and like the other ‘new normals’ the new entertainment industry is the news industry?

Till now the entertainment industry barring some squabbles more or less seemed to be undivided in its preoccupation with the ‘business’ of entertainment. But the debate over nepotism after Sushant’s death split it wide open as a badly divided sphere where one part was aggressive, abusive and ‘trending’ on social media whereas the other part withdrew and chose to be quiet. Sadly, the division which has been eating up our society for last few years has now plagued our dear entertainment industry too which has given us some immortal songs and films about peace harmony and unity.

Rhea was just and excuse. The debate over nepotism is so futile, we all know. It exists in every field. We all know. But there were some people who wanted this debate to catch eyeballs, some later used it for the same purpose-all most of us joined this sadistic voyeurism on social media. And then it became free for all-everybody was abusing everybody. An actor who has ‘holier than thou’ attitude drew rest of the film industry into another angle to this story-drugs!

And rest of the madding crowd joined the rant!. The investigating authority started investigating this angle now-so, in brief a person died and his death was made into a circus in which everybody is involved in a fistfight with everybody else!

While we know that Sushant’s death has been used as an issue to woo a certain community in the upcoming elections in a state, the depth to which we have stooped in arguing for or against any of the angles to this unfortunate death is shameful and tragic. What kind of a deeply divisive and regressive game has been going on in the country that hasn’t even left the most ‘ modern’ and happening entertainment industry of the country unscathed?

And The irony of this misogynist course of events is this- the girlfriend is accused of black magic, rebuked, abused, gets ‘mobbed’ by frenzied media and then finally arrested while the ‘actress’ who started all the talk about nepotism, drugs etc and remained abusive on social media gets security from the Union government. Meanwhile, economic crisis, number of suicides, and tension at the borders rage on.

Have you heard a better joke than this? This is the new entertainment of our society which prides on an ancient civilization and culture.