Netflix's Trial by Fire shows how society doesn’t know how to do right to grieving parents

2022 was an odd year. After hearing of death around me during the pandemic, but (touchwood) not personally witnessing it, I suddenly found myself seeing death almost every two-three weeks. From the first week of the year itself, close friends began to lose their parents. I also lost a dear friend, the lovely Prakash Vaswani, whom we had bought our flat from. It was heartbreaking. Being a writer, I perfected the art of framing the right condolence message, saying the right things to grieving spouses and children, and doing the right thing to help families through the emotional rigmarole. I battled a mild depression in June and snapped out of it, as I find it impossible to let negative emotions get the better of you when you have small children to raise, like I do, and are a hands-on parent.

But then a strange thing happened. A work friend lost her five-year-old child. When I heard this, I felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach. I was bereaved, massively triggered for I have similar aged children, and completely traumatized. I mourned for this child I never knew, hounded by what must have been his last moments, consumed by the grief his mother must be feeling, for she too is a wonderful parent. But here’s the thing­­––all my learnings on how to handle grief were rendered hapless in the face of such senseless loss. I typed many condolence messages and deleted them; I picked up my phone many times to call and stopped myself. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. Here I was slaying at death language for the old and even young, but for children? A condolence message? No! I could not think beyond congratulatory messages for children––the birth, the naamkarann, the mundan, the annaprashan, the first smile, the first steps, the first birthday, the first day of school, the first … marks of a life. Of hope. Happiness. Compared to the tragedy, my pre-determined words sounded banal, shallow and pointless to me. I was reduced to sending heart emojis and facile messages of ‘hugs and strength’. I hated myself for not being able to do more, to say more, without sounding trite. The “death language”––a way to express loss, can cut down even the best among us.

This skittishness was captured eloquently in Netflix’s latest show, the provocative, respectful and moving Trial By Fire, where relatives and friends gather around the Krishnamoorthy’s who have lost both their children to an avoidable tragedy, and fumble through it. The death language, unlike the love language, is a more tricky business, and who better than Indians to cover its absurdity with food­­––piles and piles of it. Neighbours bringing sandwiches, relatives taking over the kitchen, chai becoming the collusive union bringing together people who have nothing in common with the parents anymore. It brought to the fore the anatomy of a condolence message: where you must channel your rage at the futility of young lives lost, your helplessness at not being able to save someone, your triggers where you know it can happen to you and immediately dismiss such thoughts, your guilt at being a survivor when someone you know is not, and your loss at finding the correct things to say and do.

Drishyam 2 too tells the story of a grieving mother who seeks revenge on the man who murdered her son, even as the killer––a family man himself­­, a man willing to undertake any steps to protect his family––is unable to meet the mother’s eyes. Even the smartest and sharpest among us knows not what to do in the face of a child’s death.

The trials and tribulations faced by those who have lost near and dear ones requires empathy, maturity and sensitivity. While we may not yet have discovered the right words for it, we must do the right thing and work towards the right words. Spending time with the grieving to show them they’re not alone. Sharing verbal and written words of affirmation to those most broken. Going to their house just to give them a hug. And, like everything else in life, showing up is half the battle won, whether it’s to the gym, on social media, at work, for friends and family, for yourself, or for someone who needs a shoulder­­! And it begins with me picking up the phone and calling my friend, to show her that the language of death can also be a language of love.

In an era where we fetishize opinions we don’t own, the weekly ‘Moderate Mahila Mandate’ presents unadulterated and non-partisan views on what’s happening to women in India today.

Meghna Pant is a multiple award-winning and bestselling author, screenwriter, columnist and speaker, whose latest novel BOYS DON’T CRY (Penguin Random House) will soon be seen on screen.

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