Lights, camera, politics: How Rhea became a valuable pawn

It’s not about Rhea being ‘nice’, or ‘not nice’. It is about her being framed or not framed. Do you know what a ‘doob’ stands for? I didn’t. I had to ask my children. They found it funny that I was wondering about weed — I guess you know what that is. Ganja. Grass. Cannabis. Marijuana. The leaf that’s legal in 36 countries. Same one that’s ground and added to sweetened milk during Holi and served freely across India, without the cops showing up with warrants of arrest. Some smoke the stuff, others make pakodas out if it. From now on — hold that doob. There are nasty nutjobs out there who are hell bent on throwing people into the slammer if they cannot find any other grounds to do so. Watching clips of the gorgeous Zeenat Aman swaying sensuously to ‘Dum Maro Dum’ in a cloud of chillum smoke, I felt like smoking doob myself as I shook my head in utter disbelief at the ridiculousness of it all.

Let’s talk about the woman. Yes, her — 28-year-old Rhea Chakraborty. The woman in jail right now. For what? For maybe having smoked up at some point in her life… for maybe being a habitual ‘stoner’… for maybe having shared a doob with her late boyfriend, Sushant Singh Rajput. As of now, that’s her sole crime. Three crack investigating agencies have failed spectacularly to nail her for anything more heinous than maroing dum. So far, nothing connects her to fraudulent financial deals involving her late boyfriend’s funds, nor was she present at the scene of the tragedy. But none of this matters. Rhea Chakraborty has already been condemned and thrown to the wolves by people desperate to silence her and divert the country’s attention from other, vaster issues. This clumsy ploy isn’t working. And the narrative is no longer about Rhea alone — either her innocence or culpability. It is about the blatant misuse of state machinery. And the brazen abuse of power.

Once the main players achieve their political objectives — a win for the BJP in the Bihar elections, and the collapse of the doddering coalition in Maharashtra, with the BJP re-grabbing the gaddi in the state, the over-sensationalised 24×7 coverage of the SSR case will cease overnight. Bollywood will go back to being Bollywood. And even Rhea’s most vocal and ardent supporters will forget her existence. At the moment, Rhea has her uses. She is required as a bargaining chip, a valuable pawn. Nobody really cares what happens to her or her shattered family in the long run, once the political jugaad ends.

Till six months ago, nobody had really heard of Rhea. Today, everyone has an opinion about her. Random types remotely connected to Rhea or her late boyfriend are grabbing a piece of the action, making the most of the ‘mauka’ to get a li’l publicity. A television actor protested that the case has become a ‘chai biscuit’ conversation. But suddenly, caste has been brought into the controversy — Rhea, we are told, is a ‘Bengali Brahmin lady’ by West Bengal’s Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Choudhary. So what if she is? Economist Kaushik Basu has introduced ‘suttee’ into the narrative by insisting the public is thirsting for a morbid spectacle involving a helpless woman. I have received communication from a highly influential person telling me to remember that Rhea’s mother is Maharashtrian, and a GSB like me, which makes Rhea a ‘Marathi Mulgi’.  Someone forgot to update Sanjay Raut and Uddhav Thackeray, I guess. Strange that it’s Rhea’s Bengali father, and not the Maharashtrian ‘Aie’ who has been in the picture so far.  Sharad Pawar is all set to play the Maratha/Kshatriya card and woo the Kshatriyas in Maharashtra and Bihar, on behalf of SSR’s family. In effect, he has chewed up his political partners (Shiv Sena) in Maharashtra. Complicated? Not really! Everyone is playing the same dirty game, employing identical dirty tactics. Now everything depends on who’s dirtier… and who sinks still lower.

Which leaves Rhea, the woman who is being damned for not being an ‘achchi aurat’. She will have to row her own boat once the rats desert her. She still holds a few cards — there is the woman card, the feminist card and the patriarchy card — all these highly inflammable cards waiting to be further exploited. If the caste card doesn’t do the job, the top players in the game will pull out some other card. Let’s see — she has already been branded a murderer, a drug dealer, an embezzler. Forces must be hard at work looking for some other crimes. For now, public opinion seems to be with the Byculla women’s jail’s latest celeb – from ‘Rhea ko phasao’ to ‘Rhea ko bachao. Eventually, Ms Chakraborty may emerge innocent of all charges. But the person whose life will never be the same again is the postman. Yup! The same one who has become an overnight celebrity for delivering mail to the building where the Chakrabortys reside. Nobody has asked him his caste so far. Huge oversight! Come on, mediawallas — what about an exclusive, prime time interview with the postman? Now that would be a scoop!