In shockingly bizarre turn of events, Mrs. Sunanda Pushkar Tharoor, wife of HRD Minister Shashi Tharoor was found dead in mysterious circumstances in Delhi. Ever since, all hell has broken loose and like it always happens in high profile cases, there is rampant speculation about what really transpired. The micro blogging site Twitter is buzzing with lot of drama caused by tweet fights between Sunanda Pushkar and a Pakistani Journalist Meher Tarar, whom Sunanda accused of stalking and hinted of having an affair with her husband, Shashi Tharoor. Things that came to light after the death and many aspects surrounding it are a shocking revelation of some bitter truths.
We live in times when the rich, famous and powerful are in constant media glare and every tiny detail from their life, even the ones that are supposed to be private and strictly personal are broadcasted unabashedly for consumption of mass by media. Nobody seems to really think about where the line of mere information for the sake of transparency and intrusion is drawn. Given very limited time available for broadcast in forever content hungry media world and fleeting moments of attention span of the audience, scandals and private lives of politicians and Bollywood celebrities tend to dominate news. PDA between a great looking couple who happen to be public figures serves as great potential for admiration, fan following, aspiration and entertainment compared to victims of inhuman plight of poor in some remote corner of nation. Oh and people can never have enough of those "cute" pictures and salacious gossip of "perfect life" of famous, powerful and successful people. And the "celebrities" are always more than willing to oblige with enough content to stay ahead in the fierce war amidst their own clan.
Social networking sites are buzzing with posts on Sunanda Pushkar and unfortunately many of them are so insensitive, almost as if punishing her for being intelligent, independent beautiful and having a "fairy tale" life! Suddenly, the world that was admiring her for "having it all" is obsessed with her two previous marriages and appears to be in hurry to give her a character certificate. There can't be anything more tragic than brazen politicians and powerful people trying to score political mileage out of others tragedy. It is impossible to bring openness, accountability and transparency to any democracy without a powerful media but when the media is manipulated by people in power, its purpose is defeated.
I am deeply shocked to hear about this death and it would be more tragic if it was suicide. As a woman, I find it difficult to comprehend that a strong, educated, independent, beautiful woman like Sunanda Pushkar should suffer and die for man's love!!!! I am sure considering the "happy" life Mr. and Mrs. Tharoor were very keenly portraying in media, at every opportunity, they could have also handled the troubles if any in their life without going public. The fact that such private matter came to public eye in such shocking manner is really absurd! There seems to be much more than what meets the eye. But would we ever find that out? Alas, only if the media would have listened to the story of Sunanda Pushkar that she was desperately trying to share instead of avoiding it for the sake of its own compulsions. Sadly, Sunanda's side of truth is silenced forever with her death!
I wish I could ask her only one question, was it all really worth it in the end?
