Kushal Punjabi Ends His Life

In a  shocking turn  of events model, actor,anchor and  reality-show participant Kushal Punjabi ended his life on December 26  evening.

 Exactly why a 37-year old  entertainer with a beautiful wife and 4-year old son would do something drastic is unknown.But I remember  Kushal’s zest for  life. There were problems in  his family that I won’t  like to discuss. But he  would  confide  liberally with me  about his  very hectic love  life and  his trysts with various  filmmakers who  would  apply the law of lust to his ambitions.

He  once told me  about giving the casting couch a  try with a very very high-profile producer. “We  kissed. But I couldn’t go beyond that with him. I said sorry and  left hurriedly.”

Living life on his own terms came naturally to Kushal. He  did what he  wanted and  did it without inhibitions. In his  very first  film Bom Gay he featured in a  gay gangrape sequence with RahulBose . Kushal happily went fully unclothed for the role. 

 “Anything on camera, but sorry, no compromises to get work,” he told me.

We saw him  in films like Karan Johar’s Kaal and Prakash Jha’s Krazy Kukkad Family . Kushalalso scripted the latter. I remember he  was  very enthusiastic about a zombie horror film he was doing with Abhay Deol. It never got released.

I remember how  excited he was about the opportunity to  script  Krazy Kukkad Family.  “I got the story idea during my visit to a family function but I didn’t know that it would turn into a film. I wrote the script and kept it aside. But later, through a friend I got in touch with Prakashji and he readily accepted to make it into a film.”

Kushal has had some bitter experiences in the past dealing with roles that turned out to be far less important than he was led to believe. Apparently, nearly half of Kushal’s role in  a football based  film  was chopped off. 

Kushal  spoke to me   about the frustrations  of  just waiting for success to happen. “The big opportunities still elude me. I won’t sign on anything that comes my way just because I don’t have a better option. There’re always the ads to keep me going. But the problem is, once you acquire the reputation of a competent actor the big stars shy away from working with you.But it’s okay. I make enough money to live the way I want to. In fact, I’ve just bought myself a home. And in Bombay that’s a dream come true.”

Evidently it was  not okay.

Shocked  by Kushal’s  suicide fellow-actor Karanjit Vohra says, “When I heard about KushalPunjabi’s  suicide I was shocked. He  was always so enthusiastic about so many things.He had his hands  full with various activities, always  on the job full of energy. What  could’ve driven  him to take such an extreme step?”