Monday, June 10, 2013

Jiah Khan

Jiah Khan's suicide got me thinking. It's hard accepting lopsided relationships and it's true life's not fair. There are millions who go through unrequited love but does that mean one needs to resort to suicide? If a relationship doesn't work for you, shouldn't you just gracefully exit? We are so fixated on that one particular door that sometimes we fail to see the million other doors waiting to be discovered and explored. Isn't that true for so many of us?

I do agree it's sad that her life had to end this way. Similar to everyone else, when I first heard the news, I thought it was the pressure of living up to people's expectations and her dwindling career fortunes that made her take this drastic step. Been reading several articles, the ones that stayed with me were posts by Ramgopal Varma and Gul Panag. Reading their views, I kept thinking to myself was it worth dying for because she was still so young and had so much to live for.

Then as the day progressed, more news came trickling in about the suicide note, her dreams, hopes, despair, and a volatile, abusive relationship. He did sound quite an ill-mannered, brute of a ****head and deserves to be punished for abetment of suicide but still wondered was there really no other way out but suicide? Couldn't she have walked out on such a loser who showed her no respect? Living in modern, cosmopolitan Mumbai, weren't there options available for her to move on? Was she a prisoner under some bondage?

Aren't relationships all about adding some value to your life? Since this was clearly not working and he was abusive and insulting, wasn't it self-destructive on her part to stick around? I know it's tough at that point of time when one's mind is in turmoil and denial with all kinds of conflicting thoughts but the sensible thing to do would have been to walk out. Guess it's easy to think of possible solutions here, but then again how would we react if we went through the same intensity of the pain or emotions unless we put ourselves in her shoes! And that intensity or obsession called love can also be a dangerous killer where all good sense flies out of the window.

Reading her letter, it is sad thinking about the mental and physical trauma she had to go through at the hands of a clearly delusional and dangerous psychopath. And it's scary to think that there are so many of these psychopaths out there. They roam freely among us in all stratas of society. It's a gray area so nobody wants to acknowledge that such people require psychiatric care and counselling because that will mean admitting there is a problem. Some are so dangerous that they should be locked up. Even parents look the other way and treat it as bad temper or immaturity when their offspring is actually a threat to society. Though this is violent and unacceptable behavior, there is a thin line so it's still not considered a crime. Having known and heard of so many friends, acquaintances, and strangers who have undergone similar abuse and trauma, wonder if there is some way we can reach out and help such folks caught in these hopeless situations. Shouldn't there be awareness created of such offenders?

2 comments:

chandrimawrites said...

Any death is sad and saying anything against the dead is not really nice. But, I can't help saying that she need not have had to kill herself... she was a bold girl and she was, at the initial stage of her career, willing to do anything to get noticed! She was in a bad relationship, agreed. Why didn't she walk out? If she had a successful career in films I wonder if she would've even cared about this guy!

Pratima said...

Feel really sad for Jiah Khan. The feeling of hoplessness and being completely at a loss in such a situation can be quite overwhelming.