An icon’s death often leads to grief getting the better of reason
Dr. CR Chandrashekhar
Professor of Psychiatry – NIMHANS, Bangalore
The news of YS Rajasekhara Reddy’s death, which spread like
wildfire, pushed many mourners to take their own lives. While some killed themselves, others died of heart attack caused by the unbearable grief. But what caught my attention were the people who committed or attempted suicide on learning of the political leader’s demise. None of us has forgotten the uproar that Michael Jackson’s death stirred up. News related to MJ still gets updated every hour. When a film star or a mass leader dies, we Indians do not lag behind in the public display of grief by either killing ourselves or by protesting violently! Fans of famous personalities normally commit suicide because they are not able to digest the cruel reality of their icon’s death. Though psychology does not have any particular term for these types of suicides and suicide attempts, this tendency is said to arise from uncontrollable grief.
One might have seen suicidal tendencies in people who have lost either a family member or a dear one. They think of suicide because they feel the world and life are empty without the existence of the loved ones. The same mentality or feeling plays in this context too. They may set themselves ablaze or consume poison or even hang themselves, but all they want to do is flee from the irrepressible grief that the death has caused.
Strong faith, admiration or love forces some people to go to any extent to express their feelings. The same can be reiterated in the case of suicide bombers. Though the suicide after the death of an icon differs from that of a suicide bomber, there are some associations which somewhere link these two mentalities. If the former decides to end his life after the death of an iconic figure, the latter destroys everything to show how faithful he is to his ideology.
One may recall the spate of suicides by debt-ridden farmers in different parts of the country. A farmer may commit suicide as an act of imitation when the members of his fraternity, driven by debt and penury, kill themselves. He may also think about committing suicide keeping an eye on the compensation amount that his family is likely to get after his death. I call this kind of suicides mass hysteria. Because here the suicidal tendency increases as they learn about suicide cases from the media. If a television channel telecasts a programme about such suicides, I am sure at least four to five people tend to follow suit.
Dr. CR Chandrashekhar
Professor of Psychiatry – NIMHANS, Bangalore
The news of YS Rajasekhara Reddy’s death, which spread like
wildfire, pushed many mourners to take their own lives. While some killed themselves, others died of heart attack caused by the unbearable grief. But what caught my attention were the people who committed or attempted suicide on learning of the political leader’s demise. None of us has forgotten the uproar that Michael Jackson’s death stirred up. News related to MJ still gets updated every hour. When a film star or a mass leader dies, we Indians do not lag behind in the public display of grief by either killing ourselves or by protesting violently! Fans of famous personalities normally commit suicide because they are not able to digest the cruel reality of their icon’s death. Though psychology does not have any particular term for these types of suicides and suicide attempts, this tendency is said to arise from uncontrollable grief.One might have seen suicidal tendencies in people who have lost either a family member or a dear one. They think of suicide because they feel the world and life are empty without the existence of the loved ones. The same mentality or feeling plays in this context too. They may set themselves ablaze or consume poison or even hang themselves, but all they want to do is flee from the irrepressible grief that the death has caused.
Strong faith, admiration or love forces some people to go to any extent to express their feelings. The same can be reiterated in the case of suicide bombers. Though the suicide after the death of an icon differs from that of a suicide bomber, there are some associations which somewhere link these two mentalities. If the former decides to end his life after the death of an iconic figure, the latter destroys everything to show how faithful he is to his ideology.
One may recall the spate of suicides by debt-ridden farmers in different parts of the country. A farmer may commit suicide as an act of imitation when the members of his fraternity, driven by debt and penury, kill themselves. He may also think about committing suicide keeping an eye on the compensation amount that his family is likely to get after his death. I call this kind of suicides mass hysteria. Because here the suicidal tendency increases as they learn about suicide cases from the media. If a television channel telecasts a programme about such suicides, I am sure at least four to five people tend to follow suit.
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perspective that his father never had. Back in 2002, when Vajpayee was the unquestionable leader of India and the Congress was a party in ‘terminal’ decline, his sister Priyanka Vadra took the initiative and launched the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust in Amethi. The trust launched a scheme called the Rajiv Gandhi Mahila Vikas Pariyojna (RGMPV) to help poor and destitute women earn a sustainable livelihood. Please do recall that the media pundits who are now gushing about Rahul Gandhi as the future of India did not have the time to write even a few words about him; except perhaps a few disparaging and condescending adjectives. Today, RGMVP is spread across 50 blocks in 12 backward districts of Uttar Pradesh with more than 18,000 self help groups.
appears to be a changed man. Gone is the politician who once kept his own partymen at arm’s length and sported a cold cloak of aloofness. He is now consciously seeking to evolve into a popular leader – accessible and friendly.
failing in Urdu and Mathematics, possibilities of higher education appeared bleak to her. She had appeared in the examination with best possible instruction and guidance her village school at Shayok, 140 kilometres east of Leh town in Ladakh, could offer. Still the effort had failed to bring desired results. Tsomo knew that the place to go for better instruction and guidance was Leh. But her father could not afford the expenses. “My father is a porter. He takes his horse and brings petrol and other things for the Army,” says Tsomo. “So he could not afford to send me to Leh.”
in Dhaka. For a none-too-avid fish-eater, Bangladesh was proving to be a gastronomic nightmare. So a helpful local journalist-friend suggested that I try the best “Bihari kebabs” available in town. Bihari kebabs? It didn’t ring a bell at first. I was perhaps too tormented by my food-related woes to give it a long enough thought. By evening, I was in Mohammadpura looking for “Kallu ki dukaan”. As soon as I got there, it dawned upon me that something was amiss. The glittery Bangla signboards gave way to faded Urdu banners. Slowly, very slowly, Bangla rock music faded and the voice of Mehdi Hassan took over — “Yeh dhuaan sa kahaan se uthtaa hai…” But it was a lonely husky voice with a thick accent that confirmed that I was no more in Bangladesh — at least notionally. “Ka re, ketna din se nahi nahaya hai,” a lean, wheatish man chided a child. The voice was Jamil Ahmad’s.
and skill. There is no class or caste bar when it comes to learning from someone. However, the same is also applicable in trans-national relationship; especially a country can learn a lot from its neighbours. Many of the Latin American countries have gone democratic because, the big neighbour the US, inherited it successfully. Many preferred capitalism because it turned out to be a successful economic system in the US. Similarly, if European countries are somewhat equally prosperous and united, it is because each strived to learn lessons from neighbours. Even in Asia, China is perhaps a classic example. It's incorporation of positives of capitalism - initiating liberalisation and privatisation led by Deng Xiaoping after he found that neither the socialist command economy favoured by Communist Part of China (CPC) nor Maoist ideology of shifting from socialism to communism as exercised in agriculture but failed had actually worked in favour of an economy unique in itself. Initiating reforms in a communist country like China was not easy!
standard school education from the next year onwards has been welcomed. Initially the new education policy to have a single-board system will be implemented in the academic year (2010-11) for I and VI classes and in 2011-12 it will be expanded to other standards.
over and through your woollens like missiles seeking to smash their way through armour. The Sunday Indian was witness to a strange incident that freezing morning in Pagauda village in Western Uttar Pradesh. In the last week of January 2008, farmer Attar Singh simply set fire to his standing crop of sugarcane and fought desperately to rein in his tears. It is August 2009 and Attar Singh still has nightmares about sugarcane.Sugarcane and sugar mills have left a lifetime of bitter memories for Attar Singh and thousands of farmers.
in a poverty-ridden African nation. Its name itself reflects its ideology – to oppose anything western. It is run by a western-educated leader, Yusuf, who sends his children to private English-medium school. An affluent member of nation’s middle-class, Yusuf boasts of a fleet of cars (of course, all of them of western make), and loves to ride his chauffeured Mercedes SUV. It is completely another matter that his comrades and henchmen are asked to forsake wealth for the sake of “the cause”. Surprising? Welcome to Nigeria. Welcome to the world of Boko Haram.
from the state capital Bhubaneswar, Champailo is known for the 23 young people of the village, who went to Rangoon looking for a job and ended up joining Netaji’s Indian National Army (INA). We heard the real account of the heroics from Brahmachari Uttaray, one of the very few of the 23 still around. “It was 1943. We had no work in our village. To earn a living, we finally decided to go to Rangoon and were working there as daily labourers. That was the time when we heard Netaji’s call to fight against the ‘goras’. We could sleep no more in peace. Finally in a meeting at Mangla in Burma, we decided to join INA. Netaji said that independence is not possible without blood.” Asked about the difference between India then and now, he replied, “Back then we were fighting to free our country. We thought everything will be alright after independence and we'd live happily, but nothing like that happened. Today, the government may pay us Freedom Fighter’s Allowance, but there are no real feelings for us.”
able to devote enough time in the construction of his new home, but he seems to have made up for it by contributing to the décor of his sweetheart’s new home. John apparently surprised Bipasha Basu by purchasing all the light fittings and chandeliers that she had laid her eyes on for her new apartment, and he made sure that they were all put in place before he left for London. While John is now busy shooting for Abbas Tyrewala’s film there, Bipasha just can’t seem to get over her boyfriend’s endearing endeavour! 
against western threats during a press interaction, the Iranian Ambassador to India, HE, Seyed Mehdi Nabizadeh avowed that such an old culture and dynasty can not wipe out so easily. Though it apparently seemed an emotional response, an in-depth analysis exemplifies that Iran has been incorporating certain intellectual and effective policies which are likely to bring a tectonic shift for the nation. Apart from some of the attributes such as democracy, strong economy, energy hub and a strong military power which made it influential in the region, there are many other areas on this land yet to be explored as it experiences rapid transition. To begin with, Iran though along with many other anti-American nations is affected indirectly due to oil price decline, its proactive response is credible enough to praise and effective than some of the worst affected economies. Some of the immediate policy response were to prepare an annual budget, taking into consideration the new international prices to avoid the budget deficit, policy to increase more reliance over domestic tax income, reduction of increase in money supply and controlling inflation, creating institutions of funds for increasing absorption of the running domestic and international capital and most importantly forming a committee for analysing the results of the crisis over the country and initiation of adequate policy needs to confront the same.
She is tired of seeing her and boyfriend Saifu’s name in the newspapers every other day and hates this intrusion of privacy. In fact, this desperate need for privacy has gone to such a level that she is now planning to buy a house in Switzerland so that she can hide from the paparazzi! Is this the same Kareena Kapoor who was once so open about her love life to the media?