Bollywood actress Jiah Khan commits suicide

Mumbai: Ram Gopal Varma, who gave Britain-born actress Nafisa alias Jiah Khan a Bollywood launchpad with 2007 film "Nishabd", is "shocked and chocked" over the news of her death. He says she was depressed about her career, and scared about her future as she had no work the past three years.

"The last time I met her, Jiah told me that everyone around her makes her feel like a failure," Varma posted on his Twitter page, after hearing the news that the 25-year-old had committed suicide at her Juhu home here around midnight.

"Inspite of being highly appreciated in 'Nishabd' and being a part of hugely successful 'Ghajini' and 'Housefull', she had no work for the last three years. I don't know the reason what led to this, but Jiah was very depressed about her career and scared for her future," he added.

Varma said that he had "never ever seen a debutant actress with more spunk and more spirit than Jiah when I was directing her in 'Nishabd'".

"Nishabd" required Jiah to face the camera with a thespian like Amitabh Bachchan in an unusual love story between a 18-year-old and 60-year-old. And she did it with confidence.

The movie was controversial and not very well-received at the box office, but it made the industry sit up and take notice of the then 19-year-old girl Jiah, who left a lasting impression with her act of a free-spirited soul.

"So young and so pretty," recalls Varma, adding: "Just can't believe that someone as young and so full of life is just dead. No matter what her problem was, I just so wish she applied her on screen philosophy of 'Nishabd' to her own life which is to 'Take Lite'."

Jiah Khan's foray into Bollywood didn't follow the usual song and item-dance routine. In fact, the concept of Nishabd (2007) her debut film, where she was the subject of the obsession of a much older man played by Amitabh Bachchan, didn't go down too well with most Bollywood fans. The film sank at the box office and many people questioned Bachchan's decision to act in the Ram Gopal Verma film.

However, the film made Jiah, then 18-years-old, an actor to watch out for given her apparent willingness to take up roles categorised as 'bold' in Bollywood. Therefore, almost immediately after her debut, Jiah was perhaps conveniently categorised as a girl who would never fit into a Yash Chopra or a Karan Johan romance.

Jiah Khan. AFP.

Despite a Filmfare nomination for Nishabd, Jiah's career never really took off. Her second film was Ghajini, where she reportedly got the role of a medical student aiding the hero in part thanks to her acting talent and also due to fellow actress Kangana Ranaut's inability to keep a secret.

However, the role did little for her fledgling career with south Indian actress Asin walking away with whatever plaudits remained after critics and fans were done praising Aamir Khan.

In a bid to dive in to the mainstream movies that seemed to have steered clear of her, Jiah then appeared in Sajid Khan's Housefull in 2010. No one works the mainstream better than Sajid Khan, and Jiah dutifully went through the grind on screen. She wore a bikini, mouthed three or four inane dialogues, danced and remained relegated to being another female extra.

Soon, apart from appearances at parties and product launches, Khan gradually seemed to have disappeared from Bollywood. However, she resurfaced in 2013 and gave an interview to a leading daily saying she was back, had signed new films and had changed her name to Nafisa Khan, the name her parents gave her.

In an interview she said, "Yes, I had changed my name to Jiah when I was 16. But now I want to be myself, so I am back to my real name. I was always Nafisa Khan. My family and friends call me Nafisa and I am used to it."

Hailing from London, Khan's father is an Indian American and her mother a former actress from Lucknow, and the actress in a recent interview to The Times of India claimed she had vanished briefly only to hone her skills in her home town.

See, I wasn't in India for quite some time. I was learning acting in London all this while. And I had taken a deliberate sabbatical – I wanted to hone my skills a bit more and also give myself a break. That's why I haven't been seen in any film lately."

Her career had perhaps even begun to show signs of recovery and according to an NDTV report:

Jiah was also cast opposite Shahid Kapoor in Chance Pe Dance and shot a large portion of the film before being replaced by Genelia D'Souza. However, she was signed for a two-film deal by UTV Motion Pictures and a three-film deal by Ghajini producer Madhu Mantena. She had also signed a Hollywood film, according to her website.

However, not a lot is known about the status of those projects. For now, little is known about what troubled the starlet enough to take the extreme step that she did.

There are some things that seem throwaway at the time they happen. Later, with the benefit of hindsight, they acquire a chilling quality. Like this interview of Jiah Khan from 2008, a year after she made her debut film Nishabd. She was asked to define love and she replied, "Love is a feeling I wake up with in the morning and it's gone by the time I go to sleep."

On Monday night, Khan didn't go to sleep. She hanged herself with a dupatta.

It's a terribly Bollywood death and in more ways than one. So many heroes' sisters and wronged women in Bollywood films have chosen to end their lives just as Khan did, right down to the dupatta. But suicide is turning out to be a very real aspect of contemporary show business. In 2004, actress and model Nafisa Joseph hanged herself. According to Joseph's parents, the 25-year-old committed suicide because her marriage had to be called off. In 2006, Kuljeet Randhawa, 30, hanged herself. She had recently completed shooting for her debut film. In her suicide note, she had written that she wasn't able to cope with the pressure she was feeling. In 2010, Viveka Babaji hanged herself and it was concluded that the model and actress was suffering from depression. In 1993, Divya Bharati, 19, died mysteriously when she apparently fell out of her apartment. The widespread response is shock initially and then attempts at sympathy that imply these women had been weakened by depression, as though everyone is an expert on that state of mind when you not only decide to end your life but actually go through with it.

From the reactions that have been coming in to Khan's death, there's no doubt that Bollywood was taken aback. Khan was 25 and only three films old. Statistically, she looked like a starlet on the rise since two of the three films — Ghajini and Housefull — were hits. While statistics may not lie, they don't necessarily represent the truth either. Khan became the girl to notice even before her debut in Nishabd. She was 16 when she was cast in Mahesh Bhatt's production, Tumsa Nahin Dekha. While shooting a song sequence set at a swimming pool, Khan had to wear a swimsuit. The way the crew reacted to her appearance unsettled young Khan enough to make her abandon the project. However, the fact that she was ready to wear a swimsuit was enough for many to label her "sexy". This would be fine if "sexy" didn't preclude being intelligent and talented.

Khan ultimately made her debut in 2007 with Nishabd, Ram Gopal Varma's attempt to do mash up of Lolita and Anokha Rishta. Even though critics appreciated her acting, the Lolita stain meant that her chief qualification was her sex appeal. It didn't help that she cheerfully (and perhaps naively) circulated the story of how she got the role: by walking into Varma's office "wearing the sexiest hot pants and heels". In 2008, she starred in Ghajini as the second lead. Two years later, she was seen in Housefull as an almost-minor character. As successful as the last two films may have been at the box office, it must have seemed to Khan like her career was going downhill. She'd begun as Amitabh Bachchan's co-star and the lead heroine. From there to Housefull was disheartening. As an actress, her options were limited. In Bollywood, she didn't conform to the conventional notions of beauty and she wasn't getting many roles, but it was still more hospitable than trying to break into Hollywood or the British acting scene.

Like any competitive film industry, Bollywood is a cruel world. The popular perception is still that women (and even men) get plum roles because they've slept with a producer and/or director. This isn't always true. What is undeniable, however, is that making it as an actor when you're of Indian extraction is easier in Bollywood than it is abroad. It is also true that particularly when you're a woman, success as we define it involves lots of hustling, luck and PR. Talent is low on the pecking order. It's a curious fact that the Bollywood PR machinery works its socks off to project actors as good lads who are looking for or are in committed relationships, while actresses are portrayed as sexual objects who are available.

Does this make Bollywood responsible for Khan's decision to commit suicide? Not directly, no. In any profession in the world, there are more heartbreaks than there are successes. Different people deal with the knocks in different ways. Most aspiring actors who come to Mumbai don't make it, even though many of them are fair, good-looking, slim and talented. Few get the exposure that Khan did. But you can tell from the Twitter responses from Bollywood that there is a sense of guilt. Everyone seems to trying to be make up for having forgotten about the young girl who just five years ago was hailed as the starlet to watch.

It's easier for most people to understand a young woman would kill herself because she was disappointed in love. But to commit suicide because your career was following a disappointing trail? That too when you're 25 and young — the most important qualification in the world of acting — is on your side? That doesn't make sense to most and it emphasises how none of her colleagues had realised how seriously depressed Khan was. Worse, the only way to stand by her now seems to be with something as fleeting as a tweet.

The first wave of industry reactions came from those grappling with the truth that Khan was so deeply unhappy. The second wave will claim they knew she was depressed — Varma has already said on Twitter that she had confided to him that "everyone around her makes her feel like a failure" — but no one will acknowledge how no one thinks depression is a serious issue. People who are 'strong' will 'get over it' on their own, we think. Depression needs to be ignored, rather than discussed in India. Will Khan's untimely death make her a little less forgettable? Perhaps. Will it make anyone in show business look at the next newcomer or depressed person with a little more empathy? Probably not.

In our eagerness to see her as a sex symbol, we dismissed the knocks she'd suffered in her short life. Born and brought up in London, Khan's biological father left her mother when Khan was three months old. Her mother remarried but when Khan was seven, her stepfather left the family. Khan, her two stepsisters and mother were practically homeless for some time.

At 16, Khan decided to rename herself Jiah (her real name was Nafisa), inspired by Angelina Jolie in the biopic Gia. Jolie played Gia Carangi, model who battled many demons, including heroin addiction, but ultimately emerged victorious before dying in her 20s. Khan said she chose the name because of its sex appeal. Perhaps she had hoped that she would, like the real Gia, be able to celebrate despite all the ricocheting sadness in her life. Maybe Jiah just wanted Gia's notoriety. Tragically, she ended up with far too much in common with her namesake.