Grief hangs heavy in the air afflicted by death, distress, despair and depression. Share Via Email | A+A A- (For representational purposes) Mass cremation of COVID-19 victims at Old Seemapuri Crematorium as coronavirus cases surge in New Delhi, Friday, April 23, 2021. (Photo | PTI) Grief hangs heavy in the air afflicted by death, distress, despair and depression. A flailing state left its people helpless. Pleas to save a life compete for attention with intimations of death in social and personal spaces. The eloquence of heartache is binding strangers in an uncommon intimacy of sorrow. Desolation comes wrapped in haunting images – of the wife desperately trying to revive the husband in an autorickshaw in Agra, the grandson driving with his dead granny in the car struggling to find a crematorium, of the daughter who couldn’t get an ICU for her mother appealing for legalising of mercy killing.