The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan in Color
Wednesday, October 13, 2021 — 7
























































Altar: Finding beauty in loss

R&B 
singer 
Kehlani 
has 

experienced a great deal of loss 
and portrays their resulting grief in 
unconventional ways through music. 
In their latest single, “Altar,” they 
celebrate the impact and the lives of 
those who have passed, emphasizing 
that just because a loved one is gone, 
they don’t need to be forgotten.

This song feels incredibly personal 

because of my experience with loss. 
My aunt passed away almost six 
years ago and I still have a hard time 
coping with the fact she’s really gone. 
A picture of her and me remains on 
my lock screen just so I won’t forget 
what she looks like. My heart aches 
profoundly when I look back on the 
time I had with her. I think about 
everything I took for granted and 
the million different things I wish I 
could say to her and ask her. I wish 
that I could hug her again, see her 
smile and hear her infectious laugh 
in real-time. 

“Altar’s” upbeat tone, which 

challenges the somber tone that 
often comes with songs on grief, 
drives me to pay attention to the 
memories I have left of my aunt, 
rather than the heartbreak that 
remains. The song offers a sense of 
comfort and shows me that there 
is beauty in loss, so long as I grow 
to appreciate why I feel pain when 
thinking about her. “Altar” radiates 
warmth and happiness, expressing 
the power of grief and acceptance. 
It feels like a gleam of sunshine after 
days of seemingly endless darkness 
and storms. It reminds me that the 
reason why I’m still so insistent on 
keeping her memory fresh in my 
mind is that she taught me how to 
love so deeply. Instead of feeling 
regret from failing to enjoy the 
moments I shared with loved ones, 
this song challenges me to think 
about why I care so much about 
keeping them alive. 

Listening to “Altar,” or even 

thinking about its lyrics, challenges 
me to empathetically change how I 
perceive life without my aunt. People 

constantly say that loved ones who 
have passed are “gone, but never 
forgotten” and that they will live in 
our hearts forever. But I don’t think 
I truly understood what that meant 
until hearing this song’s lyrics. I try 
not to beat myself up over the fact 
that it is taking me so long to cope 
with her death, because as Kehlani 
so gracefully sang in her song, I’m 
keeping her alive, because I want to 
and I am able to. There is no reason 
for me to get over her death until, or 
if I ever feel the need to. The fact that 
a desire to keep her alive remains so 
strong almost six years later should 
empower me to keep going and 
honor her every day. 

My aunt’s passing still causes me 

pain. But being able to recognize, 
even for a second, that the reason 
why I may feel so much grief over 
her is that the love we shared for 
each other was profound when she 
was here, and remains just as strong 
today, is enough to get me through 
the day. 

“Altar” is not the first time that 

I have been pushed to view loss in 

a positive light, but I think that its 
message came at a time when I was 
finally ready to accept that grief 

doesn’t always have to be filled with 
shame and regret. “Altar” has aided 
my growth towards acceptance 

in ways I never thought possible. I 
am forever grateful to Kehlani for 
sharing this art. 

“Gossip 
Girl,” 
“Pretty 
Little 

Liars,” 
“Glee” 
and 
“Riverdale” 

are all TV shows that share 
two large similarities: They are 
incredibly popular and the main 
cast of teenagers is played by adults, 
sometimes 15 years older.

There are many technical reasons 

producers choose to hire actors 
much older than the character they 
play. For one, most teenagers and 
minors under 18 can only work 
under a highly restricted number of 
hours due to labor laws. Their time 
on set has to revolve around their 
schooling, rest and meals. Actors 
under 16 also need to have a guardian 
on set as they work. But despite these 
technicalities, it is hard to justify 
shows like “Riverdale,” where the 
average age gap disparity between 
actors and the roles they play is a 
solid 8.25.

It’s not the number of years that 

seems to be a problem, but more 
so the time frame selected. If a 
58-year-old actor plays a 50-year-old 
character, the harm that reaches the 
audience is significantly less than if a 
28-year-old adult plays a 16-year-old 

student, which also happens to be 
the age difference between Stacey 
Dash and her character Dionne 
Davenport in the renowned classic 

“Clueless.” This is because 10 years 
is a huge time difference when 
you’re younger. Most of us likely 
don’t change as much, physically 
or emotionally, when we go from 
50 to 60, but when we go from 
10 to 20, we may be practically a 
new person. Between the ages 10 
and 20, we change physically and 
mature emotionally. Most of us start 
this time frame at the beginning 
of middle school and end it in our 
college years. Think about how 

much we changed in this period. 
A lot of us have the majority of our 
“firsts” during this time — first job, 
first year of college, first time living 

independently and so on. When a 
15-year-old looks at the screen, at 
what they are “supposed” to look like 
according to the media’s latest beauty 
standards, they are comparing 
themselves to people, in some cases, 
nearly a decade older than they are. 
They are forced into reevaluating 
themselves because perhaps the 
small student in high school with 
a face full of hormonal acne feels 
they are supposed to look like a 
30-year-old professional model. It 

perpetuates unrealistic standards, 
dragging a bag full of insecurities 
along with it. Being a teenager is 
hard enough as it is; we don’t need 
an increase in unachievable beauty 
standards. 

It’s not all just unachievable 

physical standards. Quite often, 
shows that revolve around high 
school life have a large added element 
of romance or sexual relationships. 
It’s not completely accurate to say 
high school is devoid of all romantic 
associations, but for most of us, 
it’s nothing as over-sexualized as 
Riverdale. Often, older actors are 
hired because of how unethical it 
is to have minors play out sexually 
explicit content. But there seems to 
be a much bigger, overlying problem: 
If you can’t get actual teenagers to 
play out a teenage character, chances 
are that your character isn’t doing 
what normal teenagers do. Watching 
this kind of explicit content forces 
teens who have only just started to 
figure themselves out to mature at 
a rate that may be too fast for them, 
a process that deprives them of 
reflecting on who they really are and 
who they want to be in the future.

As my mother struggled to force 

open the door that had been sealed 
for months, dust blew through the 
air. The purple walls in the garage 
were no longer the pretty lavender 
I loved, but a gloomy gray from the 
layers of dust and faded memories. 
I turned to the right and looked for 
the white car my grandfather used 
to drive my brother and me in. I 
was met with empty space and a 
reminder that the car was sold. 

I’ve been in that car less than 

a handful of times. But when I 
was, those were some of the few 
moments I was able to spend with 
my grandfather. He’d drive us to 
the only mall in our small town — a 
mall that also functioned as a hotel, 
restaurant and playground. I’d run 
into the ice cream shop that only sold 
the wrapped cones that you could 
find at every store and grab one from 
their freezer, finishing it before my 
grandfather even had a chance to pay. 
Then we’d make our way up to a red 
booth in the top-floor restaurant, my 
favorite in all of India, and eat the 
same meal I get at every restaurant 
— naan and paneer. My brother and I 
would share the food and each order a 
different flavor of lassi and split. We’d 
be the only ones at the restaurant, 
which makes sense since I now realize 
the food was mediocre at best. But at 
the time, I thought the food was the 
best in town. The entire restaurant 
would smell like a mix of every spice, 
ironic since the food was bland.

The empty garage connects to 

my grandparent’s office. I stepped 
over the broken door frame that 
guarded the office and noticed the 
layer of gray dust coating my foot. 
The green walls looked the same as 
they did the last time I was there — 
untouched. After my grandfather 
passed, the office became a time 
capsule, opened only to enter and 
leave the building or as a room for 
my grandmother to speak with 
my grandfather’s old clients who 
kept coming to talk about their 
case files from years and years 
ago since he was their lawyer. The 
normally crowded room filled with 
loud clients from all over town 
was uncomfortably silent. When I 
entered, I hesitated before I looked 
up to see his empty chair and cleared 
desk — a desk that was normally 
covered in case files.

My brother and I would sneak 

around and peek into the office when 
my grandfather had clients over. We’d 
move the curtain that covered the 
dividing glass door and quietly laugh 
from the living room, joking about 
the clients who’d glare through the 
door. Then, if we were bold, we’d open 
the door and bolt into the office. We’d 
laugh or pretend there was something 
important to tell our grandfather, but 
we really just wanted to get a look at 
the clients and eavesdrop. 

The living room was the same 

shade as the garage. Pictures of all 
the grandchildren, our parents’ 
weddings and the Hindu gods 
my grandmother prays to every 
morning covered the wall. Splotches 
of water damage covered the top 
parts of the walls, and the previous 
paint job shined through them. 
I wasn’t allowed into part of the 
attached dining room and bathroom 
because the ceiling had collapsed 
there. The window behind the box 
TV was too small to let in a lot of 

light, and it was distorted so people 
couldn’t see inside and we couldn’t 
see outside. The window in the back 
blocked off any ounce of sunlight 
because my grandmother covered it 
with blankets for a reason I forgot to 
ask her about. But even with the dust 
and the damage and the covered 
windows, the room was still oddly 
bright from the nostalgia and joy 
that beamed from the pictures.

I would spend most of the time in 

my grandparent’s living room when 
I was at their house. My brother and 
I would lay on the cot and watch 
Harry Potter movie marathons all 
day with the air conditioning pointing 
directly at us on high so that when 
the power went out, the room would 
stay somewhat cold until the air 
returned two hours later. We would 
wait patiently for the power to come 
back and the minute it did, we would 
continue our marathon, never moving 
from the cot. Our grandmother would 
come and give us homemade dosas 
and chutney for dinner, and we’d 
scarf it down in the living room as the 
marathon played on. 

I walked past my grandfather’s 

locked bedroom — it sent a slight 
shiver through my body — and made 
my way to the bedroom my mother 
and aunt once shared. The red paint 
was peeling off the walls, and the 
only working light was the sunlight 
hitting the distorted windows. 
A few crows sat right outside the 
window cawing, breaking any 
silence in the room. The hot air 
burned my skin. The fan and air 
conditioner no longer worked. A 
sadness loomed over me when I saw 
the murals my brother and I painted 
as kids tattered from the aged paint. 
I took a breath in and was hit with 
the pungent smell of mothballs, 
a smell so familiar to me, yet, one 
that I hadn’t smelled in years. The 
windows were covered with my 
cousins’ paintings from when they 
were little, over 25 years ago, dull, 
but still intact. 

Whenever 
I 
visited 
my 

grandparent’s home in India, my 
entire family including my aunts and 
cousins would all sleep in this room. 
We’d watch TV and talk for hours. My 
grandmother would tell us her best 
stories as I played with my toys. She’d 
talk about my parents and my aunts 
and my uncles. She’d tell me about my 
cousins who were all much older than 
me, and the things they did when they 
were little. 

Just before leaving to go back to 

my aunt’s house (12 hours away by 
train), I went out onto the terrace. 
I was met with burning dry air, 
hotter than that from my mother’s 
room. The sun was beating onto 
the concrete, so every step I made 
burned my feet. The brightness 
blinded my eyes for a short second 
while I adjusted from being inside 
a room of darkness. The clothesline 
that we used to dry our clothes 
every few days had fallen and was 
laying on the ground. My toy scooter 
sat in the corner next to the fallen 
line, unusable, completely rusted 
and dusty. I looked to the side 
and saw the other entrance to my 
grandfather’s room. A large heavy 
silver lock held the door closed. I 
stared at it for a few minutes with 
a pit in my stomach as my mind 
went blank. The same emptiness 
in my head I felt years before at his 
funeral. 

Design by Grace Aretakis

Design by Meghana Tummala

MARIA PATTON

MiC Columnist

Teenage characters should be played by teens, 

not decades-older adults

The pink house on that 

one street

SYEDA RIZVI
MiC Columnist

ROSHNI MOHAN

MiC Columnist

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

