What Babil Khan’s Breakdown Reveals About Surviving Bollywood

In the age of PR-curated vulnerability, Babil Khan’s recent Instagram breakdown came like a jagged crack through the glass. The Qala (2022) actor—son of the late, beloved Irrfan Khan—posted a raw, tearful video where he called out the casual cruelty and aloofness he’s experienced in Bollywood. He vented about the industry being “so fd” and “so, so rude.” It wasn’t long before the video was deleted and his account deactivated that the metaphoric culture vultures of public discourse swooped in with their two cents on the incident.

The responses were predictable. Some accused him of being inebriated; others called him a drama queen. To many, it reeked of the bullying baked into Bollywood’s crony networks. More than a few wondered if this was a PR stunt to boost the ye old social media numbers. That’s the thing about living at a time when authenticity has become increasingly performative. After all, social media is cluttered with narcissists who do not stop at exploiting their own traumas for publicity, sympathy farming, and a few clicks more.

But here’s the thing: Babil is 26. He lost his father—one of the greatest actors India has ever produced—at 21, suddenly and traumatically. It was Irrfan’s death anniversary on April 29. Data has consistently shown that the anniversary of a parent’s death—especially when the grief is unresolved or sudden—can be a psychological minefield, triggering depression, suicidal ideation, and emotional volatility. So, it is not entirely unbelievable that Babil had a lot on his mind which could have triggered his outburst. However, instead of crucifying him for it, we should be asking: why was this his only outlet?

We forget that grief doesn’t come with a warning label or a timeline. It ebbs and flows. Sometimes it retreats, and sometimes it envelopes you like a tsunami. You can try to retreat into your cocoon but the water gushes in no matter how hard you try to hold it out. Babil isn’t just grieving a parent. He’s trying to carve out his public identity in the shadow of a giant. He carries the invisible weight of legacy, of expectation, of constant comparison—while also trying to figure out who he is in an industry that doesn’t have the patience to nurture identity, only brand.

There’s a crude joke about religion atheists like to chuckle at. Religion is like a penis: it's fine to have one, it's fine to be proud of it, but nobody should whip it out and start waving it around in public. Sadly, instead of religion, most people apply this line of thinking to mental health. Friends, family, colleagues, random well-wishers will tell you in abstracts that they are there for you, till things get ugly and you might not find even one person to lean back on.

Like the media, and most other competitive industries propelled forward by relentless capitalist greed, Bollywood is not a place for the sensitive. And unlike corporate offices, there are no HR departments here. There’s no one to mediate when you're ghosted by people who once sang your praises and offered you the best of projects. There’s no formal grievance redressal. It’s an arena of narcissism, favour-trading, backstabbing, and whisper networks. If you push back, you’re labeled difficult. If you cry, you’re designated “unstable.”

Sushant Singh Rajput’s suicide still haunts the collective memory of this industry and its audience. The usual posthumous eulogising followed—“We should’ve reached out.” “Mental health matters.” “Let’s be kinder.” But nothing truly changes. In 2025, we’ve just lost another promising voice—content creator Misha Agrawal, who died by suicide on April 24, two days before her 25th birthday. Her death, like Rajput’s, reveals a pattern: creative careers that place immense value on numbers, virality, and perception are profoundly wounding to those with emotional depth.

In 2023, while writing about Jennette McCurdy’s memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died, Conor Smyth mentioned in the Jacobin that capitalism, especially in profit-hungry industries like the showbiz, rewards psychopathy. And it rings true here as well. Whether it's the influencer economy or Bollywood, the message is the same: Perform, or perish.

When a poised Deepika Padukone talks about depression on stage, or Alia Bhatt humorously opens up about having ADHD in an interview, we applaud those disclosures. Public figures speaking up about subjects like mental health and neurodivergence does plenty for raising awareness. But these declarations are still more palatable to the public because it makes such matters look manageable; even meme-able. But we’re far less comfortable when mental illness looks like what it actually often is—messy, snotty, erratic, emotional.

We don’t know what to do when the mask slips entirely. What Babil showed wasn’t weakness. It is merely evidence of the fact that grief doesn't go away just because everything else seems to be going well. It doesn’t go away even if you are rich or famous. Living the kind of life others would kill—or hex—to have is still no shield for grief or mental health flare-ups. Such mundane maladies of life do not manifest like a neat TED Talk. They barge in with reminders that being young, vulnerable, and trying to survive in an emotionally violent industry (and world) is a battle in and of itself.

Debiparna Chakraborty is a film, TV, and culture critic dissecting media at the intersection of gender, politics, and power