Falling stars

Robin Williams' tragic suicide has put the focus on celebrities and mental illness. No one is immune to the dark night of despair, not even a Hollywood legend. And given the obvious similarities between Hollywood and Bollywood, it is prudent to question the vulnerability of our own stars to illnesses like depression and anxiety. After all, they too suffer the same isolation, the same 24x7 media scrutiny, the same public pressure to live up to their images and the same money worries as their counterparts in Hollywood.

In fact, it is worse in India. Seeking help for depression and anxiety is vastly more stigmatised than abroad.

In recent memory it was only legendary actor Dilip Kumar who publicly went on record to say that he had sought the advice of a Harley Street psychiatrist during the early part of his career, when his image of 'Tragedy King' had begun to take its toll on his psyche. The doctor's prescription? Reprise more comic roles. Advice that perhaps didn't work in the case of poor Robin Williams.

So how do Bollywood stars cope in the absence of psychiatric help? Not too well really. Alcohol takes the place of weekly sessions of counselling in most cases.

The number of ageing legends who drown their yearning for their glory days is legion. It's a well-kept secret that many an ageing actress and actor is an alcoholic, appearing in public sparingly behind dark shades.

As for the younger lot, drugs are the easy way out of their fishbowl, unreal lives.

Be that as it may, there are many tangible reasons why, in the light of the Bollywood-Hollywood similarities, we will mercifully not witness a case like Williams'. For one, for all their isolation and stress, most Bollywood stars live with their families (often in rambunctious joint homes).

The occurrence of actresses who cite their mothers and sisters as their best friends is a common one. The presence of familial warmth and security does much to keep their mental demons at bay. Our stars know that even in the case of box-office disasters and public heartbreaks, there's always family to turn to.

The other reasons that our stars get by without succumbing to depression is the relative lack of divorce in the industry. Most stars avoid divorce and continue living in unhappy marriages to avoid public scrutiny. This 'what will people say' approach might also be a factor in their favour: Williams, we are told, suffered from mounting anxiety over his finances that were depleted by two expensive divorces.

With some recent exceptions like the Hrithik Roshan-Suzanne Khan divorce, few Indian stars have chosen this route to end a marriage. Mostly, they continue to share their homes and public lives with their spouses even while privately involved elsewhere.

With no infrastructure for medical support, carrying on in marriages that are often unhappy, struggling with their insecurities and inner demons even as they try and live up to people's expectations in a country that worships them as demi-gods, how on earth do our stars cope?

The life of a star, contrary to perception, is not an easy one. One day adored, the other day abhorred, their fate decided by a fickle public each Friday on their film's release, is not for the faint-hearted.

The words of my friend, a leading Indian actress of the 1970s, rang in my ears when I heard about Williams' suicide. "At the end of the evening, you go home alone," she had said at the top of her game, while getting into her car after a glitzy premiere. "You cannot cuddle your fan following."

Malavika Sangghvi is a Mumbai-based writer
malavikasmumbai@gmail.com