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Jiah Khan was only 25. She was desperate to make it big in showbiz. But the Mumbai movie industry had other plans. A combination of factors, including what looks like a messy relationship, drove young woman to suicide. Jiah isn’t the first. Sadly, she won’t be the last. Bollywood has claimed many young lives over the years. The industry has no space for also-rans. Neither does it have patience for those vulnerable to emotional upheavals. Either make it big and shape up, or make way: that is how things work in tinsel town. Pretty, young and ambitious, actresses and models that struggle to emerge from the shadows or are trapped in dead-end affairs of the heart are the most defenceless. Jiah Khan, by all accounts, was a spirited girl. Unfortunately, her acting career, which began with a bang thanks to Nishabd (2007), sputtered to a halt. The last straw was a failed audition for a role in a film to be made in Hyderabad. Much has transpired since Jiah killed herself in her Bandra apartment. Her mother has asserted that it wasn’t professional frustration that killed her daughter. She blamed Jiah’s boyfriend, 22-year-old Sooraj Pancholi, for the girl’s death. She released Jiah’s ‘suicide note’ to the press to prove her allegation. No matter what it was that drove Jiah to despair, another career has been cruelly cut short. More than anything, her death has shown how susceptible a starlet can be in the Mumbai movie industry. After debuting opposite Amitabh Bachchan in Ram Gopal Varma’s controversial Nishabd, Jiah had to wait for several months before her next role, a cameo in the Aamir Khan-starrer Ghajini. Jiah had expected the super success of Ghajini to help her turn the corner but nothing of that sort happened. Her wait for the big break never ended, leaving her in a fragile state of mind. The emotionally draining relationship with Sooraj only pushed her over the edge. Bollywood has seen many such avoidable tragedies. The story of Parveen Babi wasn’t quite like Jiah Khan’s but the former, too, received the rough end of the stick despite being a popular face of commercial Hindi cinema in the 1970s and early 1980s. Gripped by schizophrenia, Parveen died alone and abandoned in her Mumbai flat in early 2005. Her body was discovered only three days later. Somebody who held the industry in thrall for nearly a decade was all but forgotten — a classic example of how showbiz treats those that are no longer saleable. Parveen’s death wasn’t an established case of suicide but it can be safely surmised that she would have lived more longer her 55 years had stood by her when the going got tough. Southern siren Silk Smitha’s had an even shorter life — she was found dead in her Chennai apartment at age 35. In a career that lasted less than two decades, Silk Smitha appeared in more than 450 films made in the four South Indian languages (Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada) and Hindi. It is believed that complications in relationships and financial troubles pushed her to take the extreme step of poisoning herself in 1996. The only major instance of a male suicide in the history of Hindi cinema is that of gifted actor and filmmaker Guru Dutt. Those close to him have often insisted that he might have died as a result of an inadvertent overdose of sleeping pills combined with an excessive intake of alcohol. He was only 39. The depression-prone actor-director is believed to have been devoured by his own dark thoughts about the futility of life — a worldview that was reflected in his films, Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool, both of which now enjoy cult status among lovers of Hindi cinema. The case of model and actress Divya Bharti, who fell off the fifth floor of a Mumbai high-rise on April 5, 1993, aged only 19, is just as baffling. Less than a year earlier, she had married film producer Sajid Nadiadwala. It was a heady phase for the bubbly youngster. She had appeared in as many 14 films in a span of a little over a year and was destined for greater heights. Although the police investigation into her accidental death was closed by the Mumbai police five years later, the circumstances surrounded her death remain shrouded in mystery. Conspiracy theories that point to the possibility of either suicide or murder continue to do the rounds. Relationships gone sour have claimed the lives of several leading Mumbai models in the recent years, leading to speculation that life on the ramp is no less stressful than a career under the movie studio arc lights. Nafisa Joseph, model-turned-veejay, hanged herself in 2004 after she discovered that the man she was going to wed was still married. Six years later, another top model, Viveka Babajee, also committed suicide and, in a note she left behind, accused her stockbroker-boyfriend of pushing her into an emotional abyss. Actress and model Kuljeet Randhawa, who committed suicide in 2006, blamed the "pressures of life". In her case, there were no known emotional complications related to relationships, but the 30-year-old was reported to be suffering from depression. For some, when the spotlight dims and life gets choppy in showbiz, it isn’t easy standing up to the challenges.
Dance
is my passion
This is your third season with this group. What changes have you seen over the years? Good dancers, better concepts, better variations or anything else? We have raised the bar, and as judges, our focus will be to ensure that the celebrities push themselves harder and innovate with every performance. The season promises to be better and bigger, and hum dance ka maja chakhaenge iss season. And of course, Karan and Remo are there with me. We three get along very well. There will be more innovative concepts and new challenges thrown at the contestants. I am looking forward to anyone who can dance not only with their feet but also with their expressions, soul and heart. Do you consider yourself a better judge now than when you began? With every season, you bring in some change in the show. How do you do it? Judging is not easy, or as they say, it’s not a cakewalk, because you have to watch the performance and observe it. Since you have only to watch it once before you give your opinion, so you have to be really attentive. But it’s fun. And when you enjoy doing something, you also judge better. Besides, dance is my passion. How do you think has the film industry changed over the years? What is your take on the work approach of the present-day film industry? The film industry has changed over the years. There were not so many promotional tours earlier. But my mantra is simple: Follow what my profession demands, and right now, if I am required to promote my shows and films, then well, I will do so. You returned to films with the film Aaja Nachale. And now you are doing Dedh Ishqiya (a sequel to Ishqiya) and Gulab Gang (woman-dominating film). Are you open to doing a daily soap on TV? Right now, I have no plans to work in a television soap. Dance is my first love and I am happy doing this dance reality show as of now. Besides, I am busy wrapping up two of my films. Any plans to branch out from acting — directing, producing, etc? I am already working on dance website www.dancewithmadhuri.com. We have more than 21,000 students enrolled now. We went online on March 15. The positive thing about it is that you can learn dances anywhere in the world. You just need to log on to the website and learn to dance at your own convenience, whatever time you want to and in your own privacy. You can also record yourself dancing in the same style and upload those videos on the website and my set of choreographers will comment on what you can improve on. Also your friends can see you and rate your dance whether you were good or not. It’s a nice way to discover talent. There are many talented people in the world, who are just waiting to be discovered. So I’m busy with that. As of now, I have no plans to work on any daily soap, direct or produce any films.
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