Actor Ishitta Arun, on Sunday took to Instagram after she and her family were trolled for smiling at the funeral of uncle and veteran adman Piyush Pandey. She posted, “Grief isn’t a single script. And when you’re saying goodbye to a man who laughed louder than anyone else, remembering him through laughter isn’t disrespect. It’s continuity. It’s muscle memory. It’s knowing who he really was. What you saw was us laughing at his line- a line only he could deliver. If you had known him, even in passing, you wouldn’t have needed this explained.” She added, “We don’t stage grief. We don’t mute memory to make strangers comfortable. We remember him honestly- as laughter, courage, and life itself. Next time-know the story before you comment on the moment.”
Speaking to HT city about the incident she says, “As a society, we tend to attach emotions to certain prescribed behaviours. If you’re not crying, then you must not be grieving. If you don’t display something a certain way, then you must not be feeling it. This comes from a deeply ingrained, and often unexamined, mentality — one that is far more common across our cultural landscape than we like to admit. It isn’t limited to grief. It shows up in many aspects of Indian social conditioning. The simplest expression of it has always been, ‘Log kya kahenge?’ these are those very 4 log.”
Ishitta says her concern isn’t the trolls themselves – their opinions are irrelevant. What troubles her is what they represent. She says, “Social media hasn’t created this mindset, it has simply made it more visible. Earlier, the same commentary happened within drawing rooms and family circles – now it is just typed out loud The constant policing of how to sit, how to speak, how to feel — the quiet, everyday judgement that shapes how so many people move through the world.”
Sharing memories from the funeral she reminisces, “When we bid him goodbye, we sang Mile Sur Mera Tumhara – we cheered for mama, and we promised each other that the next time we gather, it will be in a better, lighter setting. He was always the life of the party, and that spirit stayed with us. All of us, in our own way, could hear his commentary in our heads – that familiar tone. Some of the things we did, he would have looked at and said, ‘Bakwas hai.’ And that made us smile through the heaviness. He would also have been the first to worry about his elder sisters – all in their seventies now – and whether they would slip into sadness. I’m genuinely glad that my aunts and my mother dressed up, showed up, and held themselves with dignity. That is not vanity, that is health. That is continuity. And they are allowed that grace. There are far more real things to focus on than how grief should look.” While describing the family’s bond she quotes Piyush’s iconic line, “As for our family -Fevicol ka jod hai. Tootega nahi.”
“I’m not affected by commentary or trolling – I’ve been in the public eye long enough. Comment on my work, my performance, my choices – that belongs to the professional space and I accept it. But this is not that. This is not work. This is family. And how we honour someone we love does not require explanation to anyone.If that makes someone uncomfortable, they are welcome to sit with their discomfort – we are not hosting it, ” she signs off.