Grief doesn’t always look like tears. Sometimes it’s silent. A lump in the throat. A pause before answering. A feeling that the world around you is moving at full speed while you’re frozen in place.
We don’t talk much about grief in India. Not in the way it’s felt. We perform rituals, gather as a community, light lamps, say prayers. But once the rituals are done, the expectation is clear: life must go on. People stop asking how you're doing. You're supposed to be okay.
But what if you're not? What if you’re still aching inside, not even knowing how to name what you’re feeling?
This is where writing can step in.
When Words Become a Lifeline
There’s something powerful about writing things down—especially when you feel lost. A notebook doesn’t interrupt. A blank page doesn’t judge. You can say anything, even the things you’re too afraid to say out loud.
Anton Chekhov captured this so beautifully in his story The Lament. A cart driver, broken by the loss of his son, tries again and again to talk to people, but no one listens. In the end, he speaks to his horse. Because sometimes, when no one else understands, even a silent listener matters.
That story stays with you. Because at some point in life, we’ve all felt like that driver—carrying something heavy inside, with no place to put it.
Why It's Harder Here
In many Western cultures, people are encouraged to grieve in private, to talk to therapists, to journal. But here, in India, we don't even use the word grief that often. It sounds too formal, too clinical. We say someone “passed away,” or we say “time heals,” and then we try to move on.
But the truth is—time doesn’t always heal. Sometimes, it just covers the wound without cleaning it. And when life gets quiet again, that old pain comes back louder.
Historically, we've been raised to think in terms of the community, not the individual. Our ancestors mourned together, cooked together, cried together. But today? We live alone in flats, away from family. We keep our feelings buried because there's work tomorrow, and deadlines don’t wait for heartbreak.
Journaling can be that missing piece—a new ritual for a new kind of loneliness.
Catharsis: Letting It Out
Long ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle used a word—catharsis—to describe the release of painful emotions through storytelling. It’s what happens when we cry during a movie, or find ourselves writing something that feels truer than we knew we could say.
Modern-day writers still do this. When Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie lost her father, she wrote Notes on Grief, a short, raw memoir. Her words don’t try to fix anything. They just sit with the pain, which in itself is a kind of healing.
And maybe that’s what grief needs most: not solutions, but space.
It’s Okay to Not Be Okay
We don’t always lose people to death. Sometimes, we lose them in other ways—a breakup, a friendship that faded, a version of ourselves that we had to let go. Grief isn’t just for funerals. It’s for every version of goodbye.
And in those moments, when no one else seems to notice that you’re falling apart, journaling can become your anchor.
It doesn’t have to be poetic. It doesn’t even have to be readable. It just has to be yours.
How to Start Writing Your Way Through It
Don’t wait for the “right” time. Write when it hurts, write when it’s quiet, write when you need to.
Talk to the page like it’s a friend. Begin with “I miss you” or “I don’t understand why this happened.”
Be messy. Grammar doesn’t matter. Feelings do.
Make it a habit. Even 5 minutes a day helps.
Remember: this is for you. You don’t have to share it. You don’t even have to keep it.
Finding Light, One Word at a Time
There’s no perfect way to grieve. Some people cry, some go silent, some laugh too loudly. And some, quietly, start to write. Not because it fixes everything—but because it gives shape to the chaos inside.
If you've lost someone, or something, or some version of yourself—try writing. It won’t bring them back. But it might bring you back to yourself.
And sometimes, that’s enough to begin again.