Reality bites

This morning, after an evening's worth of exposure to an arsenal of reality shows, I caught myself wondering what would happen if a participant was seriously, perhaps even fatally injured. Would the reality show be barred from airing? How would it affect TRPs of the channel? Would an incident like that affect the lay person's view of reality shows, possibly cause a withdrawal effect? Who knows what could happen.

In the evening I walked into news proclaiming the death of an eleven year old due to suicide. She featured in some dance based shows and was known to be a bubbly child. The awful act was discovered when her younger sister came home from school in the afternoon. No one is aware how it came about. Her own parents said she gave away no such intentions even as late as that very morning.

It was a tough task for her instructor to convince her parents about letting her star in dance-based reality shows. When her grades started dropping, they pulled her out so she could concentrate on her academics. And this to a girl who'd been dancing for 4 years of the most impressionable stage of her life.

What possible pressure could lead a eleven year old to her own death? My mind worked in three definitive directions. (a)Unidentified depression due to flailing academics[and the pressure that goes with it]added to the 'sudden' dearth of dance (b)child abuse, physical or otherwise (c)she was dancing with her dupatta and unfortunately it caught in the fan. This last option is the most unlikely, yet, for the sake of preserving childhood innocence, how I wish it was.