Without having to Google it, there is no ignoring the word 'death' right now more than ever. Reflected in death counts or just the deep breath you have to take every time you wear a mask and step out of home, the realisation that mortality doesn't seem like something far out of reach can be crippling. "Death is a serious business. We talk about dying really lightly sometimes but when we wish to convey condolences, we don't know what to say," says Jeeya Sethi. This lightness of the term, as Sethi shares, is found in our everyday vocabulary — when you're exhausted, you could say, "I'm dead," and when you're confronted with a meme, it is appropriate to comment "dying".

Thus, on this note today, 39-year-old Sethi will put together a comedy show about death on Zoom. It's a trial one and hence, her first time at addressing this subject. The city-based comedian began pondering on the subject three years ago when she lost a friend to breast cancer. "When she did pass away, it changed my life as well. I've seen people stigmatising it so much. They put the blame on the person suffering from it and say it's karma. They also don't use the word 'cancer', and you can't say 'breast' either," Sethi says.