Bollywood movies routinely show scenes of violence, death and loss. But they rarely show how grief is processed. “How did it happen?” asks everyone who walks into the household of Ramprasad in Seema Pahwa’s 2019 directorial debut, Ramprasad ki Tehrvi. Teenagers snicker at the repetitive query as sniffling relatives gather for Ramprasad’s funeral in a labyrinthine house in Lucknow, giving us a rare glimpse into the family politics that ensue in the event of a death.
In the realm of Hindi cinema, grief and death are often mere subplots, symbolised either by the dramatic breaking of a wife’s bangles or a garlanded photo in a traditional funeral setup. The heartbreak, anger and trauma that follow have only found centre stage in recent years, with films like Pagglait (2021), Goodbye (2022) and Ramprasad ki Tehrvi.
“These visualisations allow people to feel seen and heard. Their grief or loss suddenly has a voice and a story that’s being told, seeming like a validation of sorts,” says Hiba Siddiqui, senior Psycho-oncologist at Max Healthcare, Delhi-NCR.
The scarcity of such films, however, shows how most people shirk from dealing with the inevitability of life. Death is hard to process – even as a cinematic expression. Movies with textbook happy endings always make for a better watch. “We have a tendency to make films about the hero-heroine, and not really on life or life experiences,” Pahwa tells ThePrint.
Loss & family politics in new-age films
Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi explores the aftermath of loss – those left behind, not those who died. “The movie is based on the experience I had when my father passed away, and I saw how people reacted to the loss. The question of who will my mother live with, and the question of her independence and the possibility of choosing a new life are questions that came up in my head,” says Pahwa.
In her film, Pahwa focuses on the complex dynamics of a middle class North Indian family. “My mother did not make the choice of being by herself, and choosing a path that she can design for herself. I gave Savitri (Ramprasad’s wife) the choice of choosing none of her children and their support,” Pahwa adds.
The veteran actor and director, known for her roles in Wazir (2016), Badhaai Do (2022) and Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022), also lost her brother in an accident. Memories of her house in Delhi’s Daryaganj shaped the screenplay and choice of frames and locations for her directorial debut. A house with many rooms and nearly no inhabitants, some doors always locked, and a big family that only meets on very important occasions, all are part of Pahwa’s own memories.
And it is these spaces that give viewers an insight into the rumbling grievances nurtured by the children and their spouses. Heartfelt conversations occur only in the kitchen, in the bathroom queues, and on the terrace, away from the gaze of Ramprasad’s grieving wife.
For Pahwa, the expectation from children to ‘take care’ of their parents can deter them from living a full life. “What if none of the children can, and what if it also does not work out in the way you imagined?” The answer, for her, is taking charge of one’s own life.
In Vikas Bahl’s Goodbye, the setting is distinctly upper middle class and modern. A new-age, eccentric priest (played by Sunil Grover) answers questions on post-death rituals after Harish Bhalla (Amitabh Bachchan) loses his wife Gayatri (Neena Gupta). As family members pour in to pay their respects, Bhalla and his children realise how the only thread that held them together has snapped. The film then explores the unconventional ways in which they deal with their aching loss – squabbles, sex to non-vegetarian food.
In Pagglait, director Umesh Bist shows how death and grieving don’t always go hand in hand. The film’s protagonist, Sandhya (Sanya Malhotra) is unable to feel any sadness for her dead husband, whom she married only five months prior in an arranged set-up.
Much like Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi, Pagglait is more about Sandhya than her husband, who is simply a name in the movie. It is about the freedom a woman finds after emerging from her husband’s shadow. Bist’s story skilfully subverts the trope of ‘the grieving widow’, and uses it to show how marriages can be suffocating even without overt signs of unhappiness or discord.
While Pahwa’s film explores the nitty-gritty of grief, Pagglait often steps away from it.
“Mostly stories go from life to death. But, this film goes from death to life. Every character has a definite arc,” said Bist. “All stories in the film stop at a sum from where begins another journey,” he added.
But anticipatory grief is still not explored in movies, says Akanksha Chandele, holistic trauma therapist at I Am Wellbeing. “Knowing that a loss, for example of parents due to old age, is inevitable, is something that needs to be brought out.”
Also read: SRK changed from Pathaan to Jawan. It shows North-South divide in patriotic action films
Death in Hollywood
Hollywood has been more thorough in its exploration of death and grief – from the now iconic Ghost (1990), P.S. I Love You (2007) to the more recent Pieces of a Woman (2020).
In Pieces of a Woman, protagonists Martha (Vanessa Kirby) and Sean (Shia LaBeouf) try to grapple with the death of their baby. As Martha tries to heal, her body presents flinching reminders of her child’s death – sex, the touch of sympathy from friends to the fluids that come out of her body post-birth.
Kata Weber’s screenplay, drawn from her own experience, is complemented by director Kornél Mundruczó. Mundruczó conveys Martha’s grief with physical movements instead of actual dialogues, focusing on the solitary walks she takes in freezing streets and the apples she smells in grocery stores.
Dan Levy’s Good Grief (2023) delves into the confusion that accompanies loss. Marcus (Levy), an artist living in London, loses his husband in a freak accident. A year later, he opens a card given by his now-dead husband to discover that he was contemplating ending their marriage.
Does betrayal overpower the grief of losing a loved one? The movie explores not just death, but also friendship and the dynamics of queer relationships. It also shows what happens when chosen families stand in for biological ones, nurturing the person flailing in hurt, confusion and pain.
“I have been reading that the brain is like a muscle. That is why getting over death is so hard because your brain has been trained to feel things for a person. And when they go away, your brain is still operating under the impression that it should feel those things,” says Marcus in the film.
Levy lost his grandmother, and his dog, in almost quick succession at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. “It was hard for me to feel the specificity of loss when all I was feeling was grief for so long. It was that conversation that really expedited the concept of the movie,” said Levy in an interview.
In each of these movies, death becomes a catalyst for life and self-discovery for those left behind. Grief presents itself in myriad ways in these films, showing how there isn’t one way to mourn and process the loss of a loved one. As Chandele puts it: “Grief is not actually like a wound that heals. It is actually like an amputation—one only learns to live with it.”
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)