When will we learn?

Radhika Bhirani

~~ rbhirani@gmail.com

~~ "Being a brave, strong woman, she will never show the in-comprehensible grief she is going through," actor R. Madhavan posted on Instagram, referring to Mandira Bedi on a day when she lost her husband Raj Kaushal to a sudden heart attack. Except if she had a choice, that is, I thought to myself as I scrolled through an Instagram feed full of pictures and videos zooming into the actor's grieving and distraught face.

We ask Bollywood stars and celebrities all the time about the changes that have ensued in the industry since the Sushant Singh Rajput episode... But when will it be time for self-introspection on this futile need of being voyeurs of death every time. It angers and upsets.

"Ye dekhiye Mandira Bedi kaise phoot phoot ke royi," read one caption on a video in which the actor breaks down inconsolably just before her husband's dead body is taken to the cremation ground. "Mandira Bedi ke pati Raj Kaushal ke jaane ke baad Dino Morea ne lagaya gale," read one of the most weirdly worded Instagram caption to a photograph.

Are people even reading what they are writing before posting?

Apparently, it was Social Media Day! But let us be reminded... this is not what social media is for. You cannot make a 'trend' out of pictures and videos of a devastated wife. There are no explicit rules about how to 'cover' grieving celebrities, but this is definitely one space in the digital universe where everyone can do with self-regulation.

Cover, but cover it with the sensitivity you will expect from outsiders when grief - God forbid - comes knocking at your own door.

"Funerals, chauthas and homes of grieving families are not photo ops... Don't sensationalise grief." Shaheen Bhatt's social media post after Sushant's death remains etched in my mind. And I had hoped it was a lesson that a section of my fraternity would have learnt. But no.

On top of that, the volley of 'posts' led to vicious comments about her jeans, t-shirt, watches...

The fact that she was, despite being broken, brave enough to lead her husband's body to the funeral pyre, and conducting the last rites, became a matter of debate among 'consumers'. Why did the wife have to do it, and not the son or another male member of the house? Indian women are not allowed to attend funerals! Oh, what a precedent she has set about being a responsible mother by not letting her 10-year-old son go through the painful experience. She broke gender stereotypes at her husband's funeral... She broke age-old Hindu traditions.... Oh wow, or Oh hawww...

Why do this? Why can't we just let people be sometimes? They are humans before being celebrities... When will we learn, really?