A death, an obituary, and putting grief on hold

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, a few days after I joined my previous organisation, one of Indian music’s most beloved musicians, S.P. Balasubrahmanyam, died. I remember breaking down on my way back home from work, listening to a voice that had accompanied me through much of my young adulthood. Seven months later, comedian Vivekh too died. I had wept when SPB died, but by the time Vivekh passed away, I had begun to develop the emotional distance I needed to report on the death, as a journalist. I cried for SPB; for Vivekh, I cried from a dry well.

Over the years, I have come to cover death so often that whenever news comes in, shock only gets a one-minute window. Then, I arrive at a plan of action: break the news, write an obituary, conceptualise a series of tributes, promote the stories, and watch out for industry reactions.

But sometimes, there is a glitch in this programme and the fan in me feels a chill. There have been several such moments this year, with Asha Bhosle, R.B. Choudary, Bharathiraja, Bhagyaraj, S. Janaki, Sowcar Janaki, Singeetam Srinivasa Rao, Nana Patekar, and others dying in quick succession. Five of them died on weekends — death doesn’t come with a schedule, and it certainly doesn’t care about your work-life balance. Stating someone’s time of death as an inconvenience is insensitive, but that doesn’t make the emotional toll of those five deaths any less real. Now, every Friday and Saturday night, I find myself hoping that everyone everywhere is well. And every phone call on a Saturday morning induces anxiety.

Recently, I woke up to find several missed calls on my phone.

Deva, an acclaimed music composer, had died, and the familiar machinery began whirring inside my head. Who would write about him? Which songs and aspects of his life would we revisit?

There is something deeply unsettling about people whose work accompanied you through your formative years dying; it is as if you had always thought of them as comfort toys tucked away in a cosy corner where time stood still. I didn’t know Deva or Vivekh personally, but their voices, films, and melodies are all part of me. A journalist, however, must reckon with this private grief while preparing to report on the public loss. You cannot think of the SPB songs that played at home when you were a child; you must, instead, identify his defining works, trace his influence, source the right pictures, and ensure the story reaches readers before the competition. Grief can wait. The deadline cannot.

A colleague who had also been grieving suggested that we start anticipating who might kick the bucket next. It might sound morbid, but in journalism, it is common practice to keep obituaries ready when celebrities cross a certain age or have been unwell for a while. It is preparation for an event that you hope doesn’t happen.

As hard as it is, we learn to compartmentalise. We learn to anticipate everything so that nothing catches us by surprise. We learn to keep typing even when something deep inside us has gone strangely quiet. At the end of the day, we remind ourselves why we write tributes in the first place: because these people mattered, because they made the world feel liveable, and because documenting their lives and legacies might be the only difference we make in an industry that is quick to embrace us but quicker to forget us.

Tomorrow, another name might flash on our screens, and the machinery will whirr into action once again. But worry not; once we cross the inevitable deadline, an ocean of peace — and the freedom to grieve — awaits us. We can cry again. We can be human again.

bhuvanesh.chandar@thehindu.co.in