House of Secrets — Are we missing something on what the family was upto?

Photo by Abbilyn Zavgorodniaia on Unsplash

I am sure most of you have seen or heard of the new Netflix Show — ‘House of Secrets’, which is based on the supposed suicide by an entire household in Delhi which included 11 members. There were adults — men and women, an aged lady, young girls working in corporates and teenage boys who hung themselves in a very cultish fashion — hands tied, mouths gagged and eyes blindfolded. It seemed un-real to the most seasoned of investigators.

Instagram, Twitter and private chats revealed how people were scared of the entire thought process of the family — how they believed in supernatural stuff and so on. More importantly, these social platforms have also been abuzz with discussions around how Lalit and his mental illness led to this incident. Some narratives also blame this incident on patriarchy, again putting Lalit in the middle, wherein he controlled the family owing to him being a man. I am yet to find logic in this line of thought, and before ruffling some feathers, let me get down to the point of this article.

The idea here is to put forth what I feel has been missing in the conversations — about what might have also happened in the past within the family.

There is also a small task and giveaway at the end of the article for people who want to participate.

Backdrop

For those of you who haven’t seen this show — basically a family indulged in some form of religious practices wherein they believed that their dead grandfather was helping them from beyond. He would come via his younger son Lalit and would dictate how the family and its members should conduct their affairs to attain salvation or moksha. All this would be noted down in diaries by the young girls of the house and was then followed diligently. Lalit therefore became the de-facto man of the house and would take the lead in conducting its affairs.

If it were normal household affairs or family related issues — things would probably have been different, but here, a lot of guidance was given keeping the end goal of attaining salvation or moksha in mind. Hence the religious rituals and so on.

Now that you are aware of the family dynamics..let’s move forward…These guys decided on a ritual wherein they would tie themselves up and hang as if they were hanging like the branches of a banyan tea. As per the notes dictated by Lalit in that book, the grandfather would come and save them in the nick of time and thus their rituals would be completed and they would get closer to God.

He never turned up.

Lalit at the top

The narrative of this show very subtly tries to pin this entire act on Lalit — how he had mental issues on account of an accident and an attempt on his life wherein he even lost his voice for 3 years. As a result, we as a society are finding it easy to blame it on him with memes accusing him coming out.

I also mentioned how some are blaming patriarchy for this. I honestly don’t even know how to counter this view-point, but the reason for it is lack of a definitive argument supporting that theory. Here, you had a family who by all means was under control — but a form of control which seemed more cultish than patriarchical.

What I found really mind-blowing in this entire scenario and what I feel no-one is talking about.

1. Did you guys notice how casually the kids and the ladies of the house were buying those stools and bringing up those ropes?
2. Did you notice how casual the kid sounded as per the neighbour when he was asked to come and play. As per the friend, the teenager simply replied that he would not be able to play today implying that he would come and play tomorrow. It was more of — I have some work today, will come tomorrow.

Both these acts suggest that the family would undergo such rituals before too, which were probably as life threatening as the one they ended up with. Cults have been known to brainwash people with an an unbelievable force — they have made people kill themselves, they have made people kill others. But I believe this is a rare case where the act involved indulging one-self in a brutal and grotesque fashion but expecting someone from the supernatural world to come and save them.

Faith in something and someone is built over a period of time, it has layers to it. For example, you go through a crisis and recover or you are going through a lean period and start doing good and all this happens wherein you believe that someone helped you-in such scenarios your faith or belief increases. On the face of it — the increase in financial position and the upcoming nuptials of one of the girls — all these were tangible results which were shown and which very much might have strengthened their belief. But such tangible results are relatively too small to justify an act of hanging one-self.

Therefore, two scenarios emerge out of it -

1. They were some more tangible results that they got which kept on strengthening their faith
2. Definitely, they had indulged in practices and acts which were as life-threatening as this one before. You don’t casually walk up to hang yourself like that and expect that someone from a supernatural world will save you

I am ending this on a very abrupt note, but I believe these questions need to be discussed more than blaming events on people who cant defend themselves. Like the lady in the series in the end mentioned — ‘We all need a collective truth to believe in, post that the chapter closes in our minds’.

Guys — There is a small task for people who have enjoyed this article. You can generate memes on this topic and post it via your own social handles on Instagram and/or Twitter. You need to tag @jugal_wadhwani on Twitter and @jugal.wadhwani on Instagram along with the link of this article. The top 5 memes will be given Amazon vouchers worth INR 500 each.