The Man with so many Dark Secrets!

A Convenient Death (2020)
The Mysterious Demise of Jeffrey Epstein
Authors: Alana Goodman & Daniel Halper

The turn of the 21st century witnessed the rise of conspiracy theories, including Pizzagate, #MeToo, following the exposé of Harvey Weinstein, and QAnon. One prominent news story that captured public consciousness was that of Jeffrey Epstein.

Epstein began life as the modest son of a refuse collector in Coney Island. Although poorly qualified and lacking a university degree, he fabricated his resume to secure a teaching position at a school. He was an intelligent man, but when his deception was revealed, he transitioned to the money market. Despite lacking formal qualifications, he succeeded in persuading his clients to invest significantly through him.

Epstein claims to have made millions for his clients, but some insist that he keeps the liaisons going through well-crafted blackmail.  

He is said to have made tonnes through his shady business of pimping minor girls and arranging them for some 'special' clients. His close clientele may include Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey, Bill Gates, Woody Allen, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson, Alec Baldwin, MBS, Ehud Barak and maybe Trump.

Many of those mentioned in his later exposé deny ever knowing Epstein, but video evidence is plentiful. The mastermind behind Epstein's recruitment was Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of Britain's disgraced media baron Robert Maxwell. She is reported to have a network for procuring underage girls to get the ring started.

It is said that Epstein was audacious in his actions. He flaunted his private jets, including a Boeing 727 whimsically named 'Lolita Express', about the 1962 film 'Lolita', to win over VIPS, and even acquired his own island for his alleged illicit activities. His net worth remains questionable. Some even doubt whether he is truly worth what he claims to possess. Conversely, much like he does for his clients, he may have concealed his wealth in offshore accounts, beyond the scrutiny of prying eyes. Epstein was known to be a philanthropist, donating to numerous institutions of higher learning and funding research. His most prominent client was Leslie Wexner, the owner of 'Victoria's Secret', who availed himself of more than just his financial management services.

In 2005, one of the girls recruited as an escort reported to the police. This soon opened a can of worms that would not disappear. Epstein's house of cards collapsed. Ghislaine was also implicated. One by one, Epstein's acquaintances claimed not to know him. After receiving a jail sentence for soliciting a prostitute and an underage one, he was released in 2009. In 2019, he was rearrested on federal sex trafficking charges. A month after his arrest, having rewritten his will and preparing for his trials with his team of lawyers, he was found dead in his cell. The cause of death was determined to be suicide by hanging. Even though Epstein was on suicide watch, the CCTV was not functioning. No staff had observed his activities for an extended period. The post-mortem findings were contradictory, such as the ability of a tall man to hang himself without sufficient leg space. The pattern of neck injury was also questioned by detractors.

For a man carrying so many dirty secrets which could tarnish the image of many, there is every reason for him to be dead and not wash their dirty linen in public.

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The Mysterious Demise of Jeffrey Epstein

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#MenToo?

The pendulum has swung. Not too long ago, the members of the fairer sex had a raw deal. They were placed as second-class citizens. They were discriminated against, received less salary and failed to capture high-ranking posts. They were assumed to think with their heart, not their brain, more emotional and less rational. Social restrictions were imposed in the familial hierarchy. They had to play second fiddle to a father figure in the family unit. Even when it came to passport applications for children, the father's consent used to be mandatory, but the mother's. 

There was a time when having a 'Y' chromosome was synonymous with masculine toxicity. Activists screamed of discrimination. They quickly illustrated how far behind they were in achievements compared to the others. They demanded legislative changes to correct the inequality. It did not matter that many females were actually more interested in other delicate stuff like fitting into their gendered roles than sweating it out in the rat race. They tried to show their presence through their romantic, creative writings in the early years, followed by the satiety of feeling of a blowing breeze when they indulged in cycling, symbolic of feeling freedom.

With the availability of education and mobility, everyone thought equality and empowerment would be the natural sequelae. But not really! Just as we thought everyone would have their place in the sun, chunks of the population think we should go more conservative. The female populace takes it upon themselves to take a back seat. Some used ancient scriptures to stunt women's development. 

Not all laws initiated by society end up serving the real needs of the masses. The #MeToo movement has shown us this. In this day and age, all one has to do to defame and defile a male is to allege that he had touched her inappropriately or acted without her consent. The truth, whether the action was consensual or did actually happen, is immaterial. The intended damage will happen like clockwork. 

Atul Subash

When Cupid misfires, and love turns sour, the feuding couple will start hurling accusations against each other. In India, the estranged wife has multiple secret weapons to deploy. She can accuse him of dowry harassment, sexual misconduct and domestic violence.

The recent suicide of Atul Subash, a tech professional from Bengaluru, had too much to deal with during his divorce proceedings. He alleged that his wife kept adding false accusations against him to the umpteenth cases already there. He added that the legal system is against men in every way it turns. Even though women can earn and stand on their feet, the system still expects the husband to pay alimony. The wives scorned have mastered the art of using the law to entrap and bankrupt the husbands dry. Atul clearly mentioned these in a 40-page confession and 80-minute presentation just before he hung himself.

Even though everyone is equal in the eye of the law, it cannot be denied that it is sympathetic to expressive and emotive victimhood-displaying females. In the eye of the law, by default, the male gender is the aggressor. They do not see males as the silent sufferers or the abused. There is a need to have gender-neutral laws. As is quite apparent, there can be aggressors on either side of the fence; there are gentle males and combative females, too. And there are passive-aggressive ones, too. 

Ironically, a law created to defend the vulnerable had spinned on its own head. The vulnerable have mastered the nuances and loopholes of law that they have wrapped around their fingers to give the accused violators.

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Who is a good man?

The Affair (Miniseries); 2014-19.
Season 1-5 (53 episodes)

Some men justify their polyamorous activities by saying that it is the norm. They assert that monogamy is an artificial construct that society conjures to determine ownership, responsibility and financial commitments in exchange for pleasures and the encumbrances emanating.

Society has constructed a cookbook recipe of how society should be lived - a monogamous one, sex within the confines of marriage and condemnation of fornication.

In defence, Casanovas insist their actions be in sync with the demands of Nature. The male seedlings are produced in abundance with the sole purpose of choosing the best of the offspring. Hence, they are just helping Nature sow their seed far and wide, aiding the production of the best species to flourish. There must be a reason why oestrus cycles are glaringly absent in our species. With such effective health awareness, screening, treatment and contraception at their disposal, they look at unplanned, unwanted outcomes as the risks of doing business. Anyway, societies have ways to ensure any baby is cared for, and there are many ways to sort out problems that arise.

But they all forget the psychological component associated with this seemingly transactional union. What started as a thrill to venture into tasting the forbidden fruit will turn into a compulsion and addiction and a habit hard to break. It soon becomes an indulgence that demands time, money and sacrifices. The forbidden fruit has its way of tying one down.

God forbid, by omission or commission, the union would bear fruit or the emotional entanglements that can go as far as bringing down kingdoms. It is said that there is always behind any man's success and the corresponding 'other' woman behind his fall. An affair is usually found there rearing its head!

As the miniseries went over 50 hours of storyline, it had to cover a plethora of topics, including friendship, infidelity, the challenging world of parenting and teaching, gender dysphoria, the diabolical difference in the education systems between the East and West coasts of the USA and more. The unnecessary exposure of flesh and bed scenes is slotted between scenes to pique viewers' interests.

Another novel theory suggested in the storyline is about transgenerational trauma. All the characters in the drama are miserable. They either made wrong life choices or had such low self-restraint that they repeatedly found themselves in trouble. Instead of taking the blame for all their follies, they take the path where they can blame their genes. Apparently, because of the trauma inflicted upon them by their parents or life itself, these epigenetic factors somehow altered their genetic material to make them feel miserable and indulge in destructive habits and even suicide.

Using the metaphor of the California forest fires where people were told to move to escape to safety, the story tells us we all have to move. Do we have to move in order to live, from affairs to affairs, to have a full life?

P.S. There used to be a senior colleague who was forever with the different drop-dead gorgeous women. He was brazen about his whole affairs, displaying his 'trophy collection' in full view of colleagues, friends and relatives without considering its consequences. 

Puritans would look with an air of disapproval behind him, of course, admonishing his theatrics, what's more with a pubescent kid at home. Secretly, many of them would cringe in agony thinking, if only they had the testicular fortitude to do the same without giving a minute's thought to others' thoughts of the whole exercise. But then, the meekness in them makes them all shrivel up.  

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Death by shared psychosis?

The Great Indian Suicide (Tamil, Telegu; 2023)
Director: Viplove Koneti

In the junior years of my training, I had the chance to manage patients who were brought in after suicide attempts. The drug of choice in that demographic was paraquat, a deathly organophosphate herbicide which worked well at keeping weed at bay. Unfortunately, it also proved to be lethal to humans. A tablespoon of the deathly liquid proved lethal. Even if stomach washout and chelation were instituted early, once urinary paraquat was positive, death is inevitable. Within 14 to 21 days, slow death would ensue with organ failure, specifically lung fibrosis. More amount of remorse, regret or prayers could change back time. 

The population that thronged that hospital were plantation workers and had easy access to paraquat. Many of the victims were Indians, and the title of this movie brought the memory of that time of my career. Many of the parasuicides were for feeble reasons, to gain sympathy, to attract attention, to display undying love, for being jilted, scoring bad marks or even after being disciplined by parents. Unfortunately, their choice of drug proved wrong. They mostly, unfortunately, succumbed to the poison. At that time, I thought the Indian movies were to blame as many movies of the 80s included suicide as a selling point. They must have got their inspiration from the saga of Romeo and Juliet, the exemplar of pure, genuine, innocent love!

This movie turned out to be nothing like that. It seems to have been inspired by cases of mass suicide like Branch Davidian and the Waco incident, as well as the Jonestown massacre in Guyana, but with a twist. The components of a femme fatale and sibling killers (spoiler alert) are present.

A coffee shop owner is visited by a young lady offering her biscuit cookies to be sold in the shop. The owner, a young man who grew up in an orphanage, slowly falls for the girl. One thing led to another, and the girl dropped a bombshell. Her family plans to have mass suicide, as prescribed by their family holy man, to reunite with her dead uncle. Our hero marries the girl, goes to her family house, and tries to get to the root of the seemingly bizarre logic that her family seems to hold steadfast to. 

P.S. The movie is based on the Burari deaths in Delhi in 2018. Ten family members, including an 80-year-old grandmother, died in a ritualistic mass suicide. The deaths were determined to be motivated by shared psychosis. Read all about it here.

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Real courage is in living!

Sajini Shinde ka Viral Video (Sajni Shinde's Viral Video, Hindi; 2023)
Written & Directed by: Mikhil Musale

People who profess that humanity is very much alive have not been trolled on social media before. Just because they are behind the cloak of anonymity, perhaps with a fictitious name or a fake account, they have the fortitude to bait users into a vicious argument with the intent of causing hurt to an intended person or parties. It is a cyberbullying. The problem is sometimes it is self-made. We put too much information on our social media; sometimes, we need to think. Not everyone out there is going to laugh with us with our goofiness. Many create mountains out of molehills. And not everyone is going to handle criticism kindly.

Pew Research Center reported in a 2022 survey that 46 % of U.S. teens aged 13 to 17 have experienced some form of cyberbullying, which may include trolling. Amongst adults, what goes online is scrutinised by others and made a big deal, and soon, netizens will deem it inappropriate. Soon, the unthinking public, with the might of numbers, like sheep, would demand punitive actions without applying rational thinking or mindfulness.

Adult behaviour outside working hours is no longer his private affair but is scrutinised with a fine-toothed comb to be judged and given exemplary punishments. Only some have the tenacity to withstand all these pressures. Before due process is complete, netizens ripe with cancel culture go full-throttle to crucify the accused. First, people exhibit their pictures to share their joy. Next, these same pictures bring them misery. How ironic.

In this movie, a teacher had her partying picture online. It was her birthday, her friends got her inebriated, and she started dancing on the bar top. Her picture was taken by someone who inadvertently made it online and went viral. The administrators of her school, parents of her students, her parents and her fiance were livid. It was out of character. The school board wants to terminate her services. Then, she goes missing after writing a suicide note online. 

Life is a challenge. It just became more complicated with connectivity. It was meant to make people more informed with information at their fingertips. Still, nobody thought it would be like this - causing anxiety, depression, risk of being manipulated by business moguls and being a pawn in geopolitical wranglings.

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It's a hard life...

Oslo, August 31st (Norwegian; 2001)
Directed by Joachim Trier

Day to day living is complicated enough as we straddle through it aimlessly, wondering, "What is my mission ?". A certain semblance of certainty is pushed on upon us when we are told to follow the dotted lines left by those who traversed the road before us. There is a particular time to do this and that. Do what is expected of you at a specific time but do not jump the gun, they say.

Like a fleet of migrating birds, the current of the path is paved by the synchronicity of the flutter of the leader of the flock. Get into the stream and go with the flow. A recalcitrant starling who misses the spring schedule cannot possibly dream of finding greener pastures all by himself.

This must surely be a cruel way of Nature to punish those not in line. One small falter, and the individual gets decimated. There must surely be an alternative for outliers on either extreme of the Gaussian curve. But, Nature has been known to be extremely cruel. It does not give a damn.

Growing up into adulthood and fitting into adult roles are incredibly enduring endeavours. Everyone is assessed with a single yardstick and fitted into pre-designed cages. Latecomers will soon realise that they had missed the bus. If missing the bus was not bad enough, they were left with no transportation. Sometimes the latecomers feel so helpless that they wish that they would rather be under the bus. Life seems so hopeless.

This critically acclaimed movie is loosely based on a 1931 French novel by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, 'Will O' the Wisp'. It tells the tale of a recently institutionalised 

drug addict, Anders, trying to fit back into society. After losing five years of his formative years in rehab, he sees that the world has passed him by. His friends have found their footing in life. His former girlfriends have no time for him. His guy friends are talking about family life and children. Nevertheless, they do not seem too happy about it either. Even when Anders tries to get a job, his drug-filled past haunts him.

Anders tries very hard to fit in and start it all over again, but it is just so tricky. He yearns to end it all or maybe spiral back into the rabbit hole of cocaine ... It is tough.

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Drinking the Kool-Aid?

 House of Secrets: The Burari Deaths (2021)
Netflix, 3-part documentary.

Director: Leena Yadav

Just like a thin line that delineates ingenuity and insanity, there surely must be a fine line separating faith and delusion. There is a constant need to remind ourselves that religion was introduced to mankind to help him to make correct decisions to stay grounded on the most fulfilling path of life. Towards this end, specific do's and don'ts in life were decreed.

At a time when humanity's mental facilities were not fully developed, these rules helped Man make rational life decisions. Along the way, these religious edicts took control over logical thinking and questioning culture. Many things were taken in wholemeal from sensory nerve to somatic nerve bypassing cerebral cortex and higher centres.

When we were growing up, we thought bizarre crimes and UFO sightings were only seen in the USA and newspapers. I remember reading about the Jonestown mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana, in 1978 under the auspices of Christian-revival plus Marxism priest Jim Jones. In 1983, in Waco, Texas, a massacre took place where zombie-like followers under the leadership of David Koresh of the Branch Davidian group, an offshoot of the 7th Adventist Church, willingly drank cyanide-laced Kool-Aid at command. Well, what do you know? Within a generation, we are seeing mass suicides hitting our shores.

On the morning of 30th June 2018, friends realised that the general store belonging to the Chundawat family in the suburb of Burari in Delhi was still not open by mid-morning. Police were summoned when they could not get into their home. What the police found was unsettling. Ten members of the extended family (aged 15 to 60) were seen hanging by the neck to an iron grill roof like extensions of a banyan tree. They had their hands tied behind their backs, gagged and blindfolded. The senior-most member of the family, the grandmother, 80, was found strangled and sprawled under the bed.

It took the neighbourhood by surprise. The Chundawat family was seemingly the perfect family, with everything going well for them. Love was all around within the family members. They had everything going well for them. A fortnight prior to the incident, the family had a lavish engagement party enjoyed by many close friends and relatives. The police had a hard time trying to decide whether it was mass suicide or homicide. All they had were 11 bodies and 11 diaries over a span of 11 years.

With so much extensive investigations, interviews and forensic examination, the police deduced that it was a case of mass psychosis and accidental death. The youngest of the family, Lalit, had been suffering from PTSD following two harrowing experiences with death. He was unable to speak after his second experience but still assumed the role of the patriarch of the family when the father passed away. Lalit was a religious person who guided the family to better conditions. He soon started having dreams about his father, who would tell the family how to do things and about certain rituals that needed to be followed. During one of these religious recitals, Lalit regained his voice. All these were found written in the diaries. He could have also had auditory hallucinations.

Lalit Chundawat

The last few entries before the tragedy suggested that they were to engage in a tantric ritual witnessed by the deceased father from which they were all supposed to come out alive.

Due to mounting public and media to wrap up the case, the police came up with a plausible explanation. They blame it on the sad perceptions of mental health. Because of their reluctance to seek mental health help, a person needing was left to go on with life and influence others around him. The liberal members of the civil society were quick to blame toxic masculinity and ancient occult Hindu tantric practices.

I feel that the investigation results did not give a proper explanation for the turn of events. The hallmark of good mental is day-to-day functionality. In all accounts, the family seems to have done that. They had done themselves well from the hard times that befell them when they had to sell their property in Haryana and uproot themselves to Delhi. They had a thriving general store. They had friends and were cordial to the neighbours. Some of the family members got themselves higher education, and wedding bells were in the air. In the closely-knit community with so many find entertainment in playing busy-body and finding dirt amongst other people's households, it is perplexing that none is aware of the Chundawats' darks secrets. It is unbelievable that a 15 year would willingly submit himself to a deathly ritual. All the preparation could not be such a hush-hush. Is it so easy to subjugate educated, confident adults, to automatically accept and obey just because it is stamped with a religious seal? Wouldn't the younger generation, being of rebellious nature, be teeming with scorn at such practices and open up the dark family secrets to his close buddies? Some puzzling questions need to be answered.

P.S. "Drinking the Kool-Aid" is an expression used to refer to a person who believes in a possibly doomed or dangerous idea because of perceived potential high rewards.

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