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Ordinary life is hard enough to manage. How much harder would fame be? Too much of it? Too little of it? What must it be like to be watched constantly, measured, estimated, valued for what is visible in you? To smile at hundreds of cameras and then come home to maybe an imperfect life that cannot be fixed by the number of autographs you signed?

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 Whether you are famous or not, each day is a call to find the missing pieces of your life. To make more money, find more peace perhaps, fix the broken things around the house, within yourself, repair relationships, find more meaning, more fulfilment. It is always about what we need, what we want, what is still not found and so we go on from day to day, looking for something that grows more and more elusive each day. Taking stock is hard, being still is hard, feeling that you are enough is hard. Though really, if all of us were to sit each morning for five minutes and say ‘thank you’ for all that we already have, we would realise, how perfect the picture is, despite the frayed edges.
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It is very simple, like a Hrishikesh  Mukherjee character would say, to be happy but very hard to be simple. Most of us however get a chance every day to try again, be better, simplify our lives but for someone who has fame or has issues with it, this daily work cannot be easy.
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I saw Jiah Khan around the release of Ghajini in Bangalore many years ago. I was writing for a city magazine and was told she would be at a mobile store (if I remember correctly) for a photo op. She was the precocious new face of the season after Nishabd where she had been objectified mercilessly into a celluloid fantasy as that timeless Lolita who drives an older man out of his senses. It was a terrible film and not the kind of a launch an aspiring young actor looking for a long career in films would have taken up but Jiah had no backing in the industry. Her mother too had ambitions to be a film actor and if memory serves me right, had played a small cameo in the Nana Patekar starrer Ankush. Without the security blanket of a film dynasty or a network of supportive friends, this industry can be a cold, unforgiving place but this little girl was trying hard.
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And so she arrived in the store in a flowered dress and the photographers went berserk. It was almost as if the cameras were devouring her and she.. painfully young though she was, seemed to be enjoying it all.The white heat of being at the centre of attention. She posed and preened like a star, her long limbs and tumbling tresses perfect from every angle. Things should have gone well from there. She had by now worked with two of the biggest stars in the industry, Aamir Khan and Amitabh Bachchan and a few years later would be part of a heavy duty ensemble in a Sajid Khan pot boiler but who knows, what she felt within. I remember writing about Nafisa Joseph after she died and it was shocking that none of her friends in Bangalore knew just how close she was to ending everything. Nafisa after her Miss India win had come to the Times of India office and speaking to her had been a delight. She was articulate, intelligent, grounded and not in awe of her new-found fame. And yet, the quest for personal and professional fulfilment in Mumbai sent her over the edge, one dark night. Just as it did, Jiah Khan.
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So much is written about film stars. Their successes, failures. They are jeered at for their wardrobe malfunctions. Compared to their peers and rated like they were commodities, not real people. The truth is however that fame does not make anything easy. It gives opportunities and applause and money but it cannot counsel or console or hold your hand. And like an opportunistic friend, it does not look behind even once, when it leaves. The fact is, famous or ordinary,  sometimes we all forget just how vulnerable we are. Just how breakable, just how prone to hurt and lasting pain and depression that won’t leave. It is during these times, whether we are being chased by demons or are chasing them, that we need to remember what an absolute privilege it is to be alive. To have faculties that work, to have loved ones who will respond if we call for help in a crisis, to well-wishers who will pick up the phone when we dial their number in distress, to have an unopened gift called, the future, to have potential and possibilities and hope. To know that no matter what, if we know just how special, blessed and loved we are (and we always are), things can get better.
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Yes, life is tough and bruising but it is gentle too, when we stop to count our blessings and open the window every morning because we know, no matter what, there will be sunlight and the promise of a new day, a new life, and most importantly, a new perspective.
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Rest in peace, little Jiah. I wish, you had the patience to give yourself enough time to see just what a beautiful woman you were growing into. And just how many gifts life had in store for you, still, regardless of what had been taken from you.  I wish you had  lived your story long enough to find a happy ending.