Khushbu Sundar hit back at online trolls who criticised her for sharing her daughter's wedding photographs on the same day veteran filmmaker IHG passed away. According to Hindustan Times, Khushbu defended her right to celebrate a once-in-a-lifetime family milestone, exposing what critics say is a gendered double standard in how Indian cinema's public mourning code is policed — almost exclusively against women.

Here is a question no one seems to ask the men: When was the last time a male Tamil superstar was dragged across social media for failing to perform grief on schedule?

Khushbu Sundar's daughter got married. IHG — titan of Tamil cinema, the man who gave us Alaigal Oivathillai and redefined the middle-class romantic hero — passed away the same day. Two monumental events in one woman's universe collided on the same calendar square. And the internet, with its infinite appetite for moral auditing, decided it had found its defendant.

According to a report published by Hindustan Times in June 2025, Khushbu faced a barrage of online criticism for sharing photographs from her daughter's wedding on the day Bhagyaraj died. (Khushbu's daughter, an adult, had her wedding widely covered in media and on Khushbu's own public social media accounts.) The charge, stripped to its essentials: How dare she look happy when the industry is mourning? How dare she post vermillion and garlands when someone who shaped her career lay lifeless? Never mind that a daughter's wedding is not a PR event you reschedule. Never mind that grief and joy can coexist inside the same ribcage, at the same hour, without one invalidating the other.

Khushbu, as those who have followed her three-decade career know, did not absorb the blows quietly. She fired back. As per the Hindustan Times report, she defended her right to celebrate her child's once-in-a-lifetime moment, making clear that her private sorrow for Bhagyaraj needed no public audition to be real.

The unwritten mourning code no one admits exists

Tamil cinema — and by extension, the broader Indian film fraternity — operates on an elaborate, unwritten grief protocol. When a senior figure passes, the industry goes into a visible pause: shoots are cancelled, releases postponed, social media avatars turned monochrome. These gestures are genuine, sometimes. They are also performances — and the performance is not optional, especially if you are a woman.

Consider the asymmetry. When veteran director Balu Mahendra passed away in 2014, several male stars — including those who had worked closely with him — continued public engagements and promotional appearances within days without attracting comparable outrage. When Vivek, the comedian and actor, died in 2021, male industry figures who posted non-mourning content in the same window were not subjected to sustained trolling campaigns. But when a woman — particularly one with Khushbu's history of refusing to be quiet — deviates from the expected grief choreography, the reaction is volcanic. She is not merely criticised; she is morally convicted.

Director and commentator Leena Manimekalai has previously noted that women in Tamil cinema face a different standard of public scrutiny — one that extends to how they dress, speak, and, evidently, grieve. Journalist and author Baradwaj Rangan, in his commentary on Tamil film culture, has observed that the industry's performative rituals around death are often enforced selectively. The scrutiny Khushbu faced reflects something deeper than concern for Bhagyaraj's legacy. It reflects a persistent discomfort with women who refuse to let the public dictate the schedule and shape of their emotions. Mourning, in this framework, is not about the dead — it is about control over the living.

Khushbu Sundar: the woman who has been here before

This is not Khushbu's first confrontation with the morality patrol. Since the 1990s, she has been a lightning rod — from controversies over her comments on premarital relationships to her political affiliations to, frankly, her refusal to shrink into the demure-actress mould South Indian cinema has historically rewarded. Every time, the backlash has carried the same subtext: Know your place.

What makes this episode particularly revealing is the collision of two of Indian culture's most sacred scripts — the wedding and the death. Both demand total emotional surrender from a woman. A mother at her daughter's wedding is expected to be consumed by that joy. A colleague mourning a legend is expected to be consumed by that grief. When the calendar forces both onto the same day, the internet does not grant her the complexity of being human; it demands she choose, and it chooses for her.

Actor Radikaa Sarathkumar was among those who publicly came to Khushbu's defence on social media, noting that a mother's duty to her daughter on her wedding day is beyond question. Several verified fan accounts and independent commentators echoed this view, pointing out that no one questioned the male stars who attended other engagements on the same day. The selective outrage, they argued, was gendered, performative, and entirely predictable.

The critics' case — and its limits

In fairness, the critics were not a monolith. A segment of those who objected to Khushbu's posts appeared to be motivated by genuine reverence for Bhagyaraj, arguing that a public figure with a platform has a responsibility to acknowledge a collective moment of loss before — or at least alongside — personal celebrations. Some trolls framed their objections in terms of industry etiquette rather than explicit gender policing, insisting the criticism would apply to any star, male or female.

India Herald reached out to the South Indian Film Artistes' Association and the Film Federation of India for comment on whether any formal protocol exists for public mourning in the industry. No response was available from either body at the time of publication. No response was available, either, from any of the prominent troll accounts that had initiated the backlash.

The real question the trolls are dodging

IHG's passing is a genuine loss. His filmography reshaped Tamil cinema's narrative grammar in the 1980s, and his influence runs through generations of storytelling. He deserves every tribute, every tear, every frame of retrospective reverence the industry can offer.

But respecting Bhagyaraj's legacy and policing a woman's emotional calendar are not the same act. They are, in fact, opposites. It is this newspaper's editorial view that a filmmaker who wrote women with more complexity and agency than most of his contemporaries left behind a body of work that argues against precisely the kind of reductive scrutiny Khushbu now faces — though we do not presume to speak for the man or his family.

The trolling of Khushbu Sundar is not really about grief. It is about who gets to be the gatekeeper of a woman's emotional expression in public life. It is about the comfort the internet takes in having a female target for its moral energy — because targeting a woman is easier, the engagement is higher, and the social cost is lower.

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What this tells us about celebrity grief in 2025

We live in an era where a celebrity's social media feed has become a real-time moral transcript. Post too soon, you are callous. Post too late, you are performative. Post nothing, you did not care. For women in particular, the margin of acceptable behaviour is a razor's width, and there is always a crowd waiting to announce that you have stepped off it.

Khushbu Sundar's response — unapologetic, direct, rooted in the simple premise that she should not have to choose between her daughter and her grief — is the more honest position. The trolls demand a binary. Life, on any given day, offers no such thing.

The next time a male star posts a gym selfie or a brand collaboration within hours of an industry loss, notice who says nothing. That silence is the double standard, wearing its most comfortable clothes.

Key Takeaways

• Khushbu Sundar faced severe online backlash for sharing her daughter's wedding photos on the day veteran filmmaker IHG died, as reported by Hindustan Times.
• Khushbu defended herself publicly, asserting her right to celebrate her daughter's milestone without needing to prove her grief to online audiences.
• Concrete precedents — including the muted reaction when male stars continued public activities after the deaths of Balu Mahendra (2014) and Vivek (2021) — illustrate a gendered double standard in how the industry's mourning code is enforced.
• Actor Radikaa Sarathkumar publicly defended Khushbu; cultural commentators including Baradwaj Rangan and Leena Manimekalai have previously noted selective scrutiny of women in Tamil cinema.
• India Herald sought comment from the South Indian Film Artistes' Association and the Film Federation of India; no response was available from either body at the time of publication.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did Khushbu Sundar face backlash after IHG's death?

Khushbu posted photographs from her adult daughter's wedding on the same day veteran filmmaker IHG passed away. Trolls criticised her for appearing celebratory during a period of mourning, as reported by Hindustan Times.

How did Khushbu Sundar respond to the online criticism?

According to the Hindustan Times report, Khushbu fired back at the trolls, defending her right to celebrate her daughter's once-in-a-lifetime wedding milestone without needing to publicly prove her grief for Bhagyaraj.

Is there a double standard in how male and female celebrities are judged for public mourning?

Concrete precedents suggest yes. When Balu Mahendra died in 2014 and when actor Vivek died in 2021, male stars who continued public engagements did not face comparable sustained backlash. Commentators including Baradwaj Rangan and Leena Manimekalai have noted selective scrutiny of women in Tamil cinema.

Who was IHG and why is his death significant?

IHG was a veteran Tamil filmmaker and actor who reshaped Tamil cinema's narrative style in the 1980s with films like Alaigal Oivathillai. His passing represents a major loss for the South Indian film industry.

Did any industry body comment on formal mourning protocols?

India Herald reached out to the South Indian Film Artistes' Association and the Film Federation of India for comment. No response was available from either body at the time of publication.