DID TWITTER KNOCKED OFF

Why Sunanda Tharoor could not have killed herself!I do not believe Sunanda Tharoor meant to kill herself. I do not even believe that she was ‘knocked off’!  

There is a saying “act in haste and repent at leisure”. Majority of mistakes in our lives could be avoided if we just looked before we leapt. There are certain issues that commonly crop up as the source of problems in relationships and are later stated as reasons to why there can’t be a happily ever after. Age (be it, being involved with an older woman or a much older man), differences in religion and caste and also dumping love for an arranged marriage are some glaring examples. I think given the frequency of such situations, couples need to have an open and honest chat about the merits and potential of such relationships before embarking their journey on the love boat. If the boat is not going to the port of your choice, don’t get on it. I know it sounds cynical and too planned and that’s not how “love” is supposed to be played out, but if it’s eventually going to boil down to being skeptical and calling things off because of “obvious” reasons, you might as well save yourself the heartache, unless of course you were happy to just have a time-pass boat ride. If you are clear that any relationship you enter has to culminate into marriage, then don’t waste your time on what is either improbable or impossible. If you succumb to the heat of the moment or want to wear blinkers as you traipse love struck down the garden path, then don’t blame others for your lack of clarity. Author Nicholas Sparks in his book The Notebook wrote, “You are, and have always been, my dream”. What you need is someone who says, “I want you out of my dreams and into my life, my reality, forever”, without any “ifs and buts’” attached!

Looking at pictures of Sunanda Pushkar Tharoor in newspapers and websites, I feel truly sad at the passing away of a beautiful woman who seemed to have all – great looks, riches, a good-looking and powerful husband, a prominent presence and popularity, and a son she brought up as a single parent and was now helping launch in Bollywood. What could possibly lead a woman like that to take her own life? Certainly not one instance of infidelity – imagined or real – by her third husband!

 I do not believe Sunanda committed suicide. She may have overdosed on pills out of carelessness or stress, while seeking some respite from her mental trauma. But, why would she wish to kill herself? Even if she believed that Shashi Tharoor was cheating on her, why would she leave the field open for him or for the Pakistani woman journalist who shot to infamy overnight? To punish him? She could have done that far better by staying alive and following in the footsteps of Hilary Clinton! And going by Sunanda’s tell-all actions just before her death, she was the kind to take him to the cleaners and make him pay, rather than bowing out of the scene! Come on, she had the national press eating out of her hands, waiting for more fodder!

Unlike many who claimed Sunanda as their dear friend the moment she died, I admit I was a mere observer. I saw her at many soirees and followed her in the news. I admired her style statements and all the lovely things she wore – she had good taste and an enviable wardrobe. The kind of a wardrobe that would give a woman a good reason to live on! It must be tough indeed to leave behind all those lovingly collected things that a woman treasures through life! 

I would look wistfully at pictures of Shashi looking soulfully into Sunanda’s eyes (I didn’t care if people said it was a put-on; I wanted it to be real, I wished to believe!) I was witness to the angst Shashi went through when he spoke to me right after media reports first broke out, speculating on problems between him and Sunanda. And if you have seen that kind of a loving companionship, you do not give it up so easily! You fight to get it back! And Sunanda looks so happy, joyful and ebullient in all her pictures -- a woman truly in love with life and herself. All her friends talk about how full of life she was. Such a person does not commit suicide!

Sunanda’s was a story of, if not from rags to riches, then at least from oblivion to celebrity, and she came up the hard way. Reports indicate a life of struggle where she pulled herself up from goal post to goal post in a very deliberate and single-minded fashion, remarrying and relocating. A woman like that does not kill herself when she reaches the pinnacle of all she has ever desired in life!

Sunanda was a single parent to her son, her second husband having died when her child was just five years old. She was reportedly trying her best to launch her son 21-year-old Shiv Menon into Bollywood and had initiated talks with several key industry people. Even if she was devastated by her four-year-old husband’s infidelity, a mother doesn’t just leave her only child in the lurch with nobody to turn to at such a juncture of his life.

No. I do not believe Sunanda Tharoor meant to kill herself. I do not even believe that she was ‘knocked off;’ a cultured man of letters who loves as deeply as Shashi seemed to, does not kill his wife! But then who am I to conjecture on any of this? What actually happened is something for the police and doctors to figure out, not for any of us to conjecture – though that doesn’t really stop any of us!

As I am about to publish this blog, Sunanda Tharoor’s son, Shiv Menon, has just released a statement refuting the idea that his mother committed suicide, saying she was too strong a woman to kill herself! Stating that Shashi and his mother were very much in love with each other, Shiv also stresses that he believes Shashi incapable of “physically harming her, let alone the speculation that he could have taken her life." Shiv attributes his mother’s death to an "unfortunate mix of stress, tension and wrong medication" and appeals to all to "let her at least rest in her passing." 

 We may never know what really happened, but we should respect the son’s wish and now leave it to the experts to do their job.

Congress came out in defence of Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday saying there is "no question" of his resignation and virtually snubbed its ally NCP which had said he must dissociate himself from his ministerial duties till probe into the death of his wife Sunanda Pushkar is over.

"This could be personal opinion of NCP leader DP Tripathi ... We are not the conscience keeper of NCP. Tharoor is in a responsible ministerial position. He is also an inseparable part of Congress. There is no question of his resignation," party spokesman Randip Surjewala said at the AICC briefing.

Maintaining that no personal allegations have been levelled by anyone over this unfortunate incident, the Congress spokesman emphasised, "Neither any individual, any party or organization are insinuating vis-a-vis the alleged suicide or the alleged murder of Sunanda. When there is no charge and nobody is alleging any role of Tharoor, why should he resign."

He was responding to questions on NCP spokesman DP Tripathi's view, that the NCP thinks that Tharoor will himself disassociate from his ministerial responsibility till the investigation is over and that this was needed according to principle of propriety as the issue is serious.

Tripathi had at the same time made it clear that he was not demanding that Tharoor step down as a minister.

The NCP leader also dismissed suggestions that his demand was due to compulsions of the politics of Kerala where the NCP is part of the opposition Left Democratic Front.

Reports earlier had it that BJP's Kerala unit demanded the resignation of Tharoor from the Union ministry in the backdrop of the death of his wife. Tharoor is a Lok Sabha member from Thiruvananthapuram.

The Congress spokesman said that a magisterial inquiry into the episode has already been ordered and truth will come out. He also said that it was Tharoor, who had written to home minister Sushilkumar Shinde for expeditious inquiry into the matter.

52-year-old Sunanda was found dead in a 5-star hotel in south Delhi on Friday night, a day after her twitter spat with Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar over an alleged affair with Tharoor.

Sunanda's son says his mother couldn't commit suicide

Meanwhile, rubbishing various speculation surrounding his mother Sunanda Pushkar's death, her son Shiv Menon on Wednesday said she was "too strong" to commit suicide and died due to an unfortunate combination of media stress, tensions and a wrong mix of different medication.

21-year-old Menon, Sunanda's son from a previous marriage, said both Shashi Tharoor and his mother were "very much in love" despite their "occasional differences" and that he did not believe that the Union minister was capable of harming her physically.

"What the media reports have been alleging and implying in regard to my mother's death is not just untrue, its outrageous. Anyone who knew my mother would simply know that she was too strong to commit suicide," he said in a statement.

"I also do not believe that Shashi was capable of physically harming her, let alone the speculation that he could have taken her life," he said.

52-year-old Sunanda was found dead in a 5-star hotel in South Delhi on Friday night, a day after her twitter spat with Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar over an alleged affair with Tharoor.

"It was an unfortunate combination of media stress, tensions and a wrong mix of different medication. Her death was peaceful, she passed in her sleep. Please let her soul rest, I think there has been enough attention drawn towards her life," Menon said.

The subdivisional magistrate probing the case yesterday directed police to investigate murder or suicide angles in Sunanda's death after the autopsy pin-pointed "poisoning" as the reason for her demise.

SDM Alok Sharma has given this directive to the police after considering the autopsy report which mentioned over a dozen injury marks on both her hands as well as a minor bruise on her left cheek which could be due to use of "blunt force".

However, the report ruled out death due to these injuries.

The SDM, who had recorded the statement of Sunanda's brother, son, Tharoor and his staff, said that no family member suspected any foul play in the death.So now there’s something called the “Selfie Olympics”!!! For the uninitiated, a ‘selfie’ is a photo of yourself shot by you. In a world that’s been so obsessed with the lives of others, it’s amusing and perhaps refreshing to see such an incredible focus on the self coming into play, at least amongst the tech … Read more