Sidharth Shukla: When a young star dies

Forty is no age to go. An actor with oodles of talent, whose escalation was unstoppable, Sidharth Shukla was dealt a heavy sledgehammer by destiny. Along with the competition and the uncertainty, the transitory nature of fame should make this tragedy a ‘wake-up call’ for the film fraternity

The death of a star ceases to be a personal tragedy, triggering a public outpouring of grief and emotions. PTI

Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry

“This is the year which people will talk about.

This is the year which people will be silent about.

The old see the young die.

The foolish see the wise die.

The earth no longer produces,

it devours.

The sky hurls down no rain, only iron.”

— Bertolt Brecht

THE world of stardom, with its larger-than-life persona, is not all tinsel and glitz. Dark, subterranean forces rear their monstrous heads, making us recognise that ‘all that glitters is not gold’. Heath Ledger, whose tragic death in 2008 shocked the world, along with Jim Morrison, Jimmy Hendrix, Guru Dutt, Smita Patil, Meena Kumari, Divya Bharati, Sushant Singh Rajput and many others, became part of this tragic fraternity of stars who died young.

The death of the young is mourned intensely, as it is unnatural, unexpected and disturbs the natural laws of life. When a star dies, it ceases to be mere personal loss, it becomes a public tragedy. The star, though unreachable, enters our lives either through a cinema screen or television. They become familiar, accessible as their screen stories become our stories and we become participants in their fictionalised journeys.

Sidharth Shukla as a swirling meteor blazed with hope and endless possibilities. Despite most of us having no personal equation with him, his presence in the popular serial ‘Balika Vadhu’, as the vulnerable and handsome Shiv, captured the imagination of television viewers. This combined with his spectacular win in the reality show ‘Bigg Boss 13’ catapulted him to the highest echelons of success.

I don’t want to play pop psychologist and attribute emotional and psychological reasons for Sidharth Shukla’s unexpected death. He was young, handsome, with his days of struggle behind him. Being a star is difficult business. To look good, to be fit, no ruffled hair or morning puffiness is allowed as the watchful gaze of the paparazzi is like giant eyes that follow constantly.

Along with the competition and the uncertainty, the transitory nature of fame should make this tragedy a ‘wake-up call’ for the film fraternity. To reflect, introspect and recognise that show business is like living in a pressure cooker that can combust anytime. I strongly feel that film units should make it mandatory to hire counsellors and psychologists as stress and illness have a complex relationship. For some performers, competition is the adrenaline that motivates them, for some it’s a source of anxiety and collapse.

In this world of hyper reality, we can factor in many nodes, lifestyle choices, eating habits, genetic vulnerability, coping mechanism. Forty is no age to go, and many questions will roll in one’s head which will have no answers. An actor with oodles of talent, whose escalation was unstoppable, was dealt a heavy sledgehammer by destiny.

The death of an actor can also serve as a reminder of the vulnerability of success and how a good teacher can circumvent by instilling values of confidence, and by teaching life skills that can help deal with the vicissitudes of life.

Today, as we celebrate ‘Teachers’ Day’, we must also inquire, what are the values of being a teacher? Is a teacher a rhetorical adviser, speaking from a pulpit, doling out clichés, or is the teacher a surveillance service, with a litany of dos and don’ts? A teacher should ideally be a guiding light who doesn’t only impart information, but assures students of their uniqueness, and gives them the confidence to forge ahead without fear.

If I had to choregraph my life and flag the milestones, I can say with absolute conviction that it were the teachers who touched my life by showing alternative ways of ‘seeing’ and ‘being’ that formed me. A teacher is a lodestone that awakens your critical faculty, to analyse, dissect, interrogate and debate not only the text, but also life.

A teacher should not expect a blind following, but give the students the power to combine, edit all that they have learnt and through that create something new.

The teachers that came into my life, empowered me. The erudite and magical Dr BN Goswamy, the charismatic Ebrahim Alkazi and the nomadic and anarchist BV Karanth made me aware that art is hard, and there are no shortcuts to learning, a prerequisite being curiosity and a sense of wonderment. They also made me alert to the fact that acquisition of knowledge is not education. We need to be receptibles, that nurture and chisel. These teachers challenged me to nuance my perceptions, refine my sensibilities and hammer my mind into comprehending that knowledge is not linear but interpretative, subjective and complex.

Having been a teacher most of my life, I see the role of the teacher as an emancipatory figure, who can help the students through text and dramatic analysis, question sexism, gender prejudices, racism, casteism and meaningless consumerism.

I always tell my students, ‘I may not always know what you should do, but I definitely know what you should not do.’