Yes, cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer among women. As we speak, many of them are battling cervical cancer resolutely with the help of the medical community while scientists and immunologists are working hard on developing vaccines. And then there is Poonam Pandey who has her death by cervical cancer announced on social media. And comes out a day later to claim that she had faked her death. ‘One celebrity death has got the whole nation talking about cervical cancer and honestly, that is all I wanted’, she claimed.
But this claim is as easily digestible as a steel ball because publicity stunts and Poonam Pandey are old friends. Remember, in 2011 she had expressed a desire to strip for the Indian cricket team. Even granting that her latest act had a noble intent, her method looked too Bollywoodian in its sensationalism for her intent to be trusted. It trivialised the grim war that hundreds of thousands are fighting everyday.
A serious problem demands seriousness in content and communication. How sure was Ms Pandey sure that she had exhausted saner means of creating awareness like community walks, charity shows or fundraising dinners? “Where were they throughout January?” asked Hauterrfly, Poonam’s Instagram collaborator in a post referring to January 2024 being the Cervical Cancer Awareness month.
If one may ask, where were you on 17th November, Ms Pandey, the World Cervical Cancer Elimination Day of Action 2023? The day on which world leaders, cancer survivors, partners and civil societies from Ireland to Singapore, from Kanchipuram (India) to Congo, from Malaysia to Nigeria reaffirmed their commitment to a global movement they had undertaken in 2020 under the leadership of World Health Organization (WHO). On that day WHO released a detailed advocacy toolkit that urged women to ‘Get Informed, Get Screened and Get Vaccinated’. Sorry Ms Pandey, your Pyaasa (1957) act (in which a poet presumed dead comes back alive) is going unsold.
But then why did the media appear to be in a tearing haste to flash the news of her ‘death’? A few years ago, a staff member of a leading Rajasthan daily shared that as a policy, the newspaper refused to publish obituaries unless the family furnished a copy of the Death Certificate. If mainstream print media can take sensible precautions why not everyone? Picture her Instagram posts—on December 18, 2023, she posted a picture of her holidaying in Bangkok. Two days later, she posted a picture of her in a photoshoot with a cigarette held between her fingers.
On December 31, she posted a picture of her apparently in a casino-on-water in Goa. A cursory scroll of these recent posts would have shown that there was no evidence of any illness in Poonam Pandey’s person. But India Today went ahead and stated that Poonam was ‘diagnosed with cancer a few months ago’ and that her ‘manager had confirmed her death’. Likewise, The Times of India reported her ‘death’ stating that the report of her demise was confirmed by her PR team.
That is, they cited Poonam’s manager and the PR Agency as the source of the information. Nobody went to the root source of what was at best a rumour, as the byte was too juicy to ignore. As one of the reporters of the fictional tabloid Paris Flash in one of the Tintin comics tells his colleague, “True or not, it will sell”. Ms Pandey would perhaps be laughing away at how easily she was able to make the news about her go viral.
Not once but twice within two days. So, what next? Gimmicks don’t last. This one too shall ebb. The families whose loved ones are suffering from cancer will become even more resolute in their fightback. The war will be ultimately won.
Balaji Vittal
Film commentator and author
Posts on X (formerly known as Twitter): @vittalbalaji
