It was student Arjun Bhardwaj's suicide from a suite at Taj Lands End in 2017, captured on Facebook Live, that first made Kartik Shetty ponder over depression. After Bhardwaj hit national headlines, a friend's sister committed suicide, and Shetty was revisited by thoughts of giving up. "In the entertainment industry, self doubt is a problem. You constantly question yourself. You ask yourself if you are talented, if you are doing the right thing," says Shetty, who worked as part of the creative marketing team at AltBalaji.

Shetty's first film, called Debut, is the story of a wannabe actor who contemplates suicide, and decides to film it as his last letter to the world.