Sunanda Pushkar: A morality tale of celebrity death

The news, when it arrived, pinging on a friend’s phone, was shocking, more accurately: unbelievable. Of the many conclusions to the bizarre melodrama that unraveled over the past few days on Twitter and television channels, this was the most unimaginable. But more unexpected than Sunanda Pushkar Tharoor’s death was the sharp sadness it evoked. She was not a beloved leader or actress. What we knew about her was mostly the stuff of tabloid headlines. In a word association game, her name would evoke in public memory mostly unflattering phrases, like “sweat equity” or “50 crore girlfriend.” We didn’t really know Sunanda Pushkar to mourn her. Perhaps then the sense of tragedy comes from guilt. The guilt of playing idle witness to her unraveling, of sneering at her misspelled tweets, snickering as she slurred and rambled her incoherent way in a phone conversation with a television anchor. A cross-border romantic triangle involving attractive celebrities – each with a colourful romantic history – was irresistible fodder for crass jokes. Mehr ki aasha, ha, ha, ha! It was all delicious schadenfreude-laced fun until suddenly it was not. [caption id=“attachment_1346979” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Shashi Tharoor with Sunanda Pushkar. Reuters.[/caption] Her death confirmed what we secretly suspected but preferred not to acknowledge: that she was in great pain, mental and as it turns out physical. Pushkar’s uncharacteristic public meltdown was likely a symptom of something seriously awry, may be a toxic combination of medication and suffering. Her demise is a rude reminder of the flesh-and-blood human being behind that bold-faced name. Also, of our tendency to dehumanise public figures, to pretend their misery is not really real, and therefore okay to consume as entertainment. Not that it will prevent us from treating her death in much the same way. We the media will strain to uncover every sordid detail from her room service orders to text messages, doling them out to an avidly curious audience - even as we call for respect for the dead. Much like Barkha Dutt, who can’t see the irony of asking us to “keep compassion alive” right after tweeting, “Puzzling: When she called me on Wednesday eve Sunanda P said she’d moved into Leela alone. Yet Tharoor secretary said rooms taken Thursday?” And then there is the matter of assigning responsibility, our need to pin this on someone - and given that Tharoor is a politician, preferably someone who suits our political persuasion. While Tharoor himself is the easiest and most popular target, Madhu Kishwar has been hinting at more elaborate conspiracy theories. Never mind that we don’t even know the cause of death as yet. There is nothing new in any of this. It is the usual unseemly way we process - or rather deny  the rude reality of human mortality. So much easier to play the blame game than linger in that first moment of genuine grief. At the height of the IPL scandal, the then single Sunanda Pushkar said, “So even now, though this is my worst fall, I am not asking why all of this has happened to me. I am sure there is a larger lesson to be learnt and I am sure I am going to grow from this. And mark my words, I will grow, I will come out of this a bigger and better person. I can feel it in my bones.” We don’t know if she did indeed grow from it. But we surely have not. The piranhas are already circling, smuggling spy-cams into the hotel, spouting venom on Twitter, and they will not rest until every shred of flesh has been ripped right off.