Hang It All! Who Killed Jasmine #1/4

Recent headlines about a young Bollywood star who hung herself one fine day in her posh Mumbai home set me to wondering just why a woman so blessed would resort to so irrevocable an act. I dug a little deeper: career and romantic problems, screeched the media, citing the same boring reasons that have led other glamorous stars all over the globe to snuff out their privileged lives.

Well, Jasmine, you certainly looked chic and spunky in those pics the media splashed around — a gorgeous celeb with everything to live for. So what really led you to kill yourself? Were you devastated because another star bagged the role you craved? Frustrated with sparse media and public attention? Or did the knife of shame and despair cut too deep when you discovered your boyfriend was messing around behind your slender back? Did a combination of all these — coupled with secret agonies you’d nursed since you were a little girl — hurl you into the abyss of depression and gradually lead you to tie that noose around your slender neck?

The Spider & The Blue-Throated God – Part 2/2

Did I go from being a neurotic worrier to a goddess radiating mega-rays of tranquillity in a few short weeks? Sorry, but this ain’t no fairy tale. The sad truth is that I was born with a depressive gene: to see a glass as half-full instead of half-empty can still often be for me a true labor of Hercules. But by putting a positive spin on my life, my fears shrank, my vision cleared, and I could move forward with increasing confidence. Still, there were many times since that I found myself embroiled in situations so dark I could not find a single reason to be grateful.

One such nightmare saw me trapped me in a guesthouse in Rishikesh during the Neelkanth Mahadev temple festival that annually draws close to half a million rambunctious rural devotees down from their villages to worship Lord Shiva. The temple is surrounded by dense forest and is adjacent to the Nar-Narayan mountain ranges. Hindu myth claims it was here that Lord Shiva consumed the poison Halahala that originated from the ocean when the Gods and the Demons churned the deep waters in order to obtain Amrita, the nectar of immortality. To save creation, Shiva swallowed this poison, which turned his throat blue — which is why he is known as Nilkanth, literally The Blue Throated One.