Two Abusive Boyfriends In A Row Finished Pratyusha Banerjee Off

Too young to die.At 25 Pratyusha Banerjee was only starting out in life. When I first got to know  her she was barely out of her teens, a starry-eyed girl from Jharkhand who couldn’t contain her excitement about being selected to play the growup Anandi in the very popular series Balika Badhu.

Pratyusha was filled with dreams. “You mark my words.I am going to make Bihar and Jhakhand proud,” she said with a confidence that belied her tender years.

When did her dreams  turn into a  nightmare? What possible demons could have  driven her to such cruelly premature death? Pratyusha’s alleged suicide seems like a  revisitation into Jiah Khan’s alleged suicide. The same unfulfilled career, the same stormy relationship with a  struggler named , of all things,Rahul Raj Singh(Shah Rukh fan, we presume?)  who was perhaps not right for her.

This January Pratyusha had an ugly run-in with the cops because of the aforementioned Mr Singh who had allegedly defaulted on a car loan.

This was Pratyusha’s second stormy relationship. Prior to this her relationship with a certain Makarand Malhotra also ended in disaster with Pratyusha alleging abuse.She went into Bigg Boss to get over the relationship with Malhotra.

Pratyusha  took offence when she was called a ‘kid’ in the Bigg Boss house,but admitted she felt vulnerable and unprotected inside the Bigg Boss house.

On being evicted  Pratyusha had said to me, “I was the youngest and I am also a very private person. I connect with very few close friends in real life. Suddenly I was thrown together with all these people I had never met.Everyone in there was much older than me.It was scary. But it was also a challenge. I’ve come away from the experience much stronger and I’d like to think wiser.”

Pratyusha said she made some good friends in there. “Kamya Punjabi was my best friend in there.I also grew very close to Armanji(Kohli),Tanissha Mukherjee and very recently Ayjaz Khan who entered Bigg Boss very late. They’re my friends for life.I went into it on a clean slate. I had completed all my pending assignments and put a closure on personal issues.I’ve come out of the experience ready to start my life on a clean slate. Please wish me luck.”

Alas, nothing  really happened to Pratyusha’s career  after Ballika Badhu and Bigg Boss(the letter ‘b’ was evidently lucky for her)

From  Jamshedpur to Mumbai, Pratyusha was proud of what she had achieved.“From Balika Badhu to Bigg Boss is a big leap, I agree.I know I was in the news(for  speaking up against an allegedly abusive ex-boyfriend). But I didn’t create that controversy just to be in the news when I go into Bigg Boss.These things just happen. The timing was unfortunate. But I am the last person to create a  controversy.If I wanted to plan something to be  in the news then I’d have made the controversy much bigger.”

Ironically in death Pratyusha finds herself in a bigger controversy than life could ever offer her.