Two days have passed since Bollywood lost its gem Sushant Singh Rajput and millions of fans lost their favorite star. Sushant’s death has once again fired up the debate of nepotism prevailing in the industry due to which the outsiders are not accepted here. Sushant was definitely an idol for all the TV actors and outsiders who dare to dream to make a place in the industry but his suicide has shaken everybody. As a heartfelt note to the late actor, actor Amol Parashar opens up on the struggle of an outsider in the industry.
In a series of tweets, the ‘TVF Tripling’ star wrote, “Young actors are shaken, including me. In a manner and degree that is a little unexpected and unexplained. I can feel it in my bones and flesh, I have seen it in the eyes of few people I have seen since yesterday, I have heard it in the voice of friends I have spoken to. Did every young actor from out of town receive a call from their family yesterday? I believe so. Whether we see it clearly or not right now, our families can see and feel from afar what this means. I know each one of us has fought a battle of perception before coming here, some convinced their families, some fought and rebelled, some made a promise to come back if things didn’t work out in a certain period of time. Not that any of us thought it was easier than what our families believed. It’s just that we were willing to fight these fights. You point to certain people and say ‘Look, Papa, he/she did it. It’s possible’. That is an attempt to convince yourself as much as it is to convince them. In fact, your dreams and aspirations may not even be as big as some of those really famous names.
A friend I spoke to yesterday, said that as of today, his best-case scenario of where he would like to end up is maybe half of where Sushant was today. “Should I quit?” he added. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. In the face of uncertainty, we cling to hope. In a profession as uncertain as this, you need a source of hope, whether from your own life or others’, whether real or imagined. Sushant was one of the “biggest” names in recent times to come from out of this town, and therefore a source of hope for similar young boys and girls, whether we were actively aware of it or not. We are now acutely aware of it as it shatters.
From Bandra to Andheri, Goregaon, Malad, to Mira Road and beyond, thousands of young actors like me are sitting alone in their rooms right now wondering what this all means, trying to make sense of this strange mess of feelings and thoughts. I wish I could buy each one of them a beer, sit with them, raise a toast to Sushant, look up to the stars and tell him, ‘your dream lives on bro’, in every single one of the thousands and thousands of us, and we hear you, we know what you are trying to tell us here. To not leave each other alone, to not be too hard on ourselves. And to grow aware that in the end your self worth is not about the size of your car, or the brand of your watch, or what other people think about your life and successes. You fought the hard fight on our behalf, right at the frontlines of ambition and hardworking, and unknowingly gave us hope on days we had run out of it. Thank you, Sushant “
Sushant’s untimely death has left the entire country in a state of shock. Fans are not able to fathom this truth that he is no more with us.
We pray for his departed soul!
