Stardom & the dismissal of mental health

IN June 2020, not long after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and its resultant lockdown, the actor Sushant Singh Rajput took his life, about a week after his girlfriend or about a year-actor Rhea Chakraborty - moved out. Rajput had already been undergoing treatment for bipolar disorder.

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Apart from the breakup, another recent event, the suspicious demise of a talent manager he knew, named Disha Salian, had also affected him. By July 2020, Rajput's father had filed a case against Chakraborty and others, and in September she was arrested and jailed for almost a month under a narcotics charge. After nearly five years, the Central Bureau of Investigation has finally declared the case closed and ruled Rajput's death decisively not a murder, but a suicide, clearing Chakraborty of all charges.

All this while, however, Chakraborty had been widely villainised by many news channels and large sections of society, online and offline. Her career was damaged, as was her own mental health. She has spoken publicly about both of these impacts.