There is something honest in the way people are responding to Sushant's tragic passing; it shows how much he mattered to so many.

But in trying to find 'villains', we are looking for easy answers, because no one wants to have difficult conversations about mental health.
#Thread

In some ways, it's easy to understand why we are looking to find a person, a studio or a 'camp' to blame. That would mean there is a definitive answer to his death.

Because it is haunting to confront the question: Why would someone who, by all accounts, 'made it’, take his life?

The thing is, we've all been raised to believe that the secret to life and happiness is 'success'. And this is conditioned into us from childhood, to the extent that we measure our own self-worth in what degree, how much money, which car, how many social media followers we have.

Sushant's passing doesn't fit this narrative. And so TV channels are now trying to force-fit his story into a 'failure', even if, by every objective marker, he had the kind of success aspiring actors dream of: A TV star, then a film star, an 'outsider' with multiple 100 Cr hits!

So then, what went wrong? Well.. we don't know. Mental health doesn't work that way. And for a society that tries to put everyone into binaries, that's not easy to acknowledge. Depression doesn't look at your bank account, your designation or your followers before engulfing you.

But to accept this would be to recognise the seemingly radical idea: that happiness may not lie in how 'successful' or 'famous' or 'important' you are.

That there is little meaning in material pursuits if you think or feel or find yourself completely alone, or incredibly lonely.

And often, the pressure of being successful (and the conditioned fear of 'failure'), the pressure of always staying happy (and not being allowed to be sad), and particularly in the case of men, the facade of emotional strength (because 'Mard ban, yaar!'), add to this loneliness.

If we truly want to make sense of Sushant's passing, let the police do their jobs: and let's not derail the conversation from mental health.

Let's normalise depression & anxiety, and reduce the stigma. Everyone needs to know it's okay to not be okay and that you MUST TAKE HELP.

And while it may take us time to have deeper conversations around mental health, here's a meaningful start: Stop judging people. Stop labelling people. Stop roasting people. Stop trolling people.

Everyone is going through their own battles that we know nothing about. BE KIND.

And stop measuring your self-worth (& the worth of others) through success/failure, strength/weakness, money/followers.

Your life is not just numbers, trophies & achievement. There's a lot more meaning in love & empathy. Be there for others and please be there for yourself too!

Here's hoping that Sushant finds peace wherever he is, and his family and loved ones find the strength to get through this..

#Endthread

Just adding to this an earlier thread I had written on success, failure and mental health, if it is of any help to someone reading this: https://twitter.com/tanejamainhoon/status/1266057325002932224?s=20