New Delhi: Actor Swastika Mukherjee has said it is unfortunate that one will never get to know why Sushant Singh Rajput decided to end his life. However, Swastika Mukherjee is against the manner in which the conversation around his death is being ‘fuelled with more assumptions’. She has termed this spread of ‘hate and evil’ beyond pathetic.
Swastika starred with Rajput in the recently released Dil Bechara, his swansong. The actors previously worked together in the 2015 crime thriller Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!.
Rajput’s death last month sparked a discourse around mental health, nepotism, favouritism. His death has now been reduced to a blame game on social media. Swastika said unfortunately Rajput’s family was never given the privacy to grieve after his death.
“We have forgotten the most important bit that he has a father whose loss is way, way more than the loss of his fans, followers or co-actors. What we really needed to do was, give them the time, space and place to grieve which we have been so irresponsible with. Nobody, whether family or fans, will ever get to know what happened which led to Rajput’s death. Nobody is ever going to get closure,” Swastika said.
“We just started harping on issues and they went on piling one after the other. People showing so much concern now could have shown the same concern when he (Rajput) was alive. The whole conversation is now fuelled with more assumptions, hate and evil,” added Swastika.
The Paatal Lok star said issues like nepotism were prevalent even when Rajput was alive. It will remain in the time to come, but the media should have covered the actor’s death with more ‘sense and sensibility’.
“Putting nepotism and the baggage of the rest of the conversation happens every day on social media from different sectors. Did they not exist six months ago or will they not exist six months later? Everything will be the same and people will also move on,” Swastika pointed out.
“Those who are in power to change the work place or ethics, they could have done this six months ago and they can also do it six months later. Why use someone’s death to speak about everything you want to talk about? Media and people on social media are all lapping it up. We are not respecting the dead. We are not even respecting people in his family,” asserted Swastika.
Swastika said working in Dil Bechara, which is the directorial debut of casting director Mukesh Chhabra, was an ‘amazing experience to hold on to’. She plays Mrs Basu, mother to Kizie, played by Sanjana Sanghi, who made her debut as a leading lady with the film. It also stars Kahaani star Saswata Chatterjee with whom Mukherjee has worked in many Bengali films, including Brake Fail and Bhooter Bhabishyat.
“There are such happy memories with all of them. I never saw Mukesh lose his cool. He is such a caring director. It was as if Sanjana was in his cradle. I bonded enormously well with Sanjana. I have worked with Saswata (Chatterjee) before. Our fathers were industry colleagues. So our relationship goes long way,” she said.
