By Ira Saxena, Batch of 2016
They were nothing less than demi-gods in the eyes of their worshippers. They were heroes, saints, whose larger than life posters decked the rooms of the young and the faithful. Yet, their sudden demise merely at the age of 27 brings forth a really mystifying and chilling theory of the curse of the 27.
So what is the 27 club? Many popular musicians like Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and Brian Jones who died rather tragically at the age of 27 were grouped together and were recently joined by the late Amy Winehouse, a brilliant jazz and Rnb musician who passed away in 2011 and was 27 too.
No logic or science in the world can ever justify the unusual occurrence of so many deaths at the age of 27. But yes, all sorts of conspiracy theories do spring up every now and then.
Charles R Cross (Cobain and Hendrix’s biographer) writes that the number of musicians who died at the age of 27 is truly astonishing. The most absurd of them all says that Kurt Cobain intentionally timed his death at this age. And when Amy Winehouse died, the 27 club was revoked again as she had earlier expressed fears of dying at that age. We suppose that should have been a cautionary note in itself.
But the only link that ties them all together is the decadence that they all succumbed to. Theirs was a life of fame, excess, drugs and alcohol uninhibited. And behind that seemingly glitzy lifestyle laid, some very dark, grim and murky truths of their lives. Broken relationships, long hours on the road, demanding profession, the need to always please the audience and live up to their expectations, drained them mentally and physically. And to achieve such mammoth success and to turn into legends at such a young age wasn’t what they were prepared for.
They were genius in their own right, and, sadly, they let their talent get the better of them. But as we sit here today lamenting and cursing their deaths, we know that they stand forever immortalized by their music.
May their souls rest in peace.