The victim is a woman

One more South Indian actress recently attempted suicide to escape rumours linking her with her co-star. Aarti Agarwal made her debut in Tel...

One more South Indian actress recently attempted suicide to escape rumours linking her with her co-star. Aarti Agarwal made her debut in Telugu films six years ago, with Nuvu Naku Nachaavu. Since then, she has starred in more than a dozen films and carved a niche for herself in Telugu cinema.

What is it about the South Indian film industry that drives so many beautiful and successful actresses to destruction? Coming from a matriarchal system, such self denial seem a contradiction. Clearly, the trigger seems to be from within the family. There has to be something inherently oppressive about its society that instigates the breadwinner of the household to take such a drastic decision.

The single heroine being involved with a married actor is a common phenomenon in show business all over the world. In South India, it is an accepted tradition for legendary superstars to maintain two families. So many actresses have at the peak of their career, quit stardom to settle down as the second woman of their beloved. Some marry unequal partners and migrate to lead an anonymous existence; some swallow sleeping pills.

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Twenty years ago, Shobha, the national award winning actress of Pasi, died under extraordinary circumstances. Her family alleged it was murder but the police proved it to be suicide. Over the years, there were many more: Lakshmisri, fatafat Jaylakshmi, Malayalam cinema’s sex bomb Silk Smitha, Tamil star Vijayashri, Kannada cinema’s Kalpana, Kozhi koovaathu Viji, Telugu actresses Leela Rani, Pratyuksha and in recent times, Tamil star Monal, sister of Simran.

Assuming that these women who ended their lives were anguished over their involvement with a married man who refused to accept them socially, should not the family, who lived off their daughter’s earnings, have been more sensitive to her circumstances? It is perhaps loneliness and exploitation from within the family that forces them to look for security outside home.

The security comes with a price-tag. The terms of such endearments are too private for public judgement. But the tragedy nevertheless raises an important question: how strange that it is always the actress who is consuming poison or hanging the noose around her neck. Why has one never heard of the married hero or filmmaker die from yearning? Don’t they sufficiently care or do they cope with stigma better?

It is also said that sometimes the men feel trapped by pressure tactics and the only way they can deal with the disillusionment is by denial. It’s intriguing that in times of globalisation, when the modern woman is fearlessly negotiating for success, it is going to be a long time before she can stop being the victim in love. But it will happen soon.

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The writer is editor of ‘Screen’, a film publication of The Indian Express Group