Mandira Bedi Is Being Brutally Trolled For Performing Her Husband’s Last Rites And Not Wearing A Traditional Outfit At His Funeral
If there is one thing that most Indians love doing, it’s moral policing. They enjoy calling people out and the trolling sub-culture has only enabled them further. Presumably, these trolls find great pleasure in composing tweets and posts that are petty and extremely regressive. They’re also factual representations of the rigid, backward and conservative mentality that most of our population still clings to. The latest person to fall prey to this nonsensical form of moral policing is Mandira Bedi. Apparently, her outfit and behaviour at the funeral of her husband Raj Kaushal did not line up with an “aadarsh bhartiya naari”. It’s sickening that these trolls can’t show some respect towards the bereaved.
On 30 June, Mandira Bedi lost her husband Raj Kaushal to a sudden cardiac arrest. The couple has two children together, their son Vir and their daughter Tara (who they adopted just recently). The 49-year-old filmmaker’s last rites were performed at a funeral ground in Shivaji Park, Dadar. Pictures of Mandira Bedi breaking down at her husband’s funeral have gone viral like wildfire across social media. And if that isn’t insensitive enough, trolls are furiously going after Mandira for wearing jeans and a white T-shirt instead of a traditional outfit, and for the fact that she performed her husband’s last rites herself.
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I can’t wrap my head around this. So what if Mandira chose to perform Raj Kaushal’s last rites? We don’t live in the 19th century anymore. Women have more rights today than they did ever before. It’s outrageous that people are trying to shame her for this. A few people wrote nasty comments about Mandira while others said she shouldn’t have done what she did for it’s the duty of a son or some male relative. What utter nonsense. Do you know what the worst part is? If she wasn’t behaving in this manner, trolls would write ugly comments calling her out for not acting like a grieving widow. There is no winning with them because they enjoy policing the way people grieve. These people don’t deserve internet connections.
This trolling didn’t end here. They also descended on Mandira for not wearing a traditional outfit to her husband’s funeral. Instead of wearing a white churidar kurta or a saree, she wore a white T-shirt and a pair of jeans. Obviously, her outfit was the absolute last thing on her mind. But why would these trolls let go of a perfectly good opportunity to pass some horrendous comments, right? How about showing some tact at a time when Mandira Bedi and her family are dealing with such grave loss?
We live in a society that demands women stick to gender norms and conventional roles. Any woman, celebrity or not, found not conforming is dragged through the mud. This regressive mentality fuelled by the patriarchy is doing us more harm than anyone can fathom.
More power and strength to Mandira Bedi and her family.
