Shillong, May 31: A nationally famous entertainment sector personality from Shillong has successfully reinvented himself after being caught up in sexual harassment allegations eight years ago.
To this reporter the name Anirban Blah was familiar but in a distant sort of way. It had suddenly popped up last week through a post on social media by Larsing LD Sawyan, a successful local businessman in the hospitality sector, who was having dinner with Blah. A simple Google search reminded us of the events of 2018.
Blah was born in Shillong to a Khasi-Bengali mother and Assamese father. He grew up in Malki with two siblings through some of the dark days of communal violence in Shillong during the 1980s and 90s.
He ended up founding Kwan Entertainment, a talent management agency, with his brother and others. It became a big deal with several Bollywood stars, such as Deepika Padukone, Ranbir Kapoor, et al on its roster of clients.
In 2018, as the Me Too movement picked up pace in India, four women accused Blah of sexual harassment. He was asked to leave Kwan but not sacked. He then supposedly tried to kill himself but was rescued by police before he leapt off a bridge in Mumbai. Helpfully, he had sent a suicide note to the Times of India, whose staff then alerted police.
In the note he did not exactly confess but neither did he deny everything. Picking relevant quotes, he said, “I never was able to separate sex from power,” and “I have tried to be the best friend I can and the best colleague and the best person I can. But unfortunately the monster inside me keeps resurfacing and I’ve tried to bury him and kill him but I can’t.” He then went on to say that “You should know that the stories you hear are worse than the truth but whatever the truth, it still makes me a monster in my own eyes.”
That all happened in October 2018. His Instagram handle, which had plenty of food and drink posts on it before, went quiet until July 2019 and has been active ever since, mainly on the subject of wining and dining. But his blog, punnily titled Blahsphemy, returned in December 2018 seemingly as if nothing had happened.
Then, in late 2019, Mumbai Mirror noted that Blah was venturing into the food business. What exactly he does is not quite clear. But it appears to involve bringing together the glitterati and movers and shakers to up and coming high profile restaurants.
Blah never had to face his victims in court as no formal complaint by the four women was filed. In the eyes of the law he is completely innocent. There was another case made against him and several other entertainment figures but police dropped it after the complainant did not cooperate with the investigation.
Cases of crimes against women, like so many other kinds, can take years to go through the Indian court system. Coupled with police indifference, societal attitudes and victim-shaming, it is a wonder that any women come forward after facing abuse.
But the standard is for the accused to deny everything. And sue, as in the case of journalist-turned-politician MJ Akbar, another Me Too accused in 2018. He took his accuser to court for defamation, lost the case but appealed. That appeal is still pending.
Even those who are found guilty of the most heinous crimes can be rehabilitated. Take Indri, a premium whisky brand. It has found admirers in India and abroad and has been winning numerous awards. One of the men behind it is Manu Sharma, who was found guilty of the 1999 murder of Jessica Lal but walked out of prison in 2020 after his life sentence was cut short for “good behaviour”.
The half confession in Blah’s suicide note makes him something of an outlier. But with his Me Too infamy largely forgotten, Blah has moved on and reinvented himself. And the exalted circles that he moves in have kept their arms open to him.
