Suchandrika
Suchandrika is a writer and comedian. Her stand-up show ‘I Miss Amy Winehouse’ premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2022.
She’d lost both her parents by the time she was 19.
“When Princess Diana died, my mum cried as if she’d lost a friend. I remember her trying to involve me in it and me thinking it was mad.
My stand-up show opens with me talking about where I used to work in the middle of Camden Market. There’s a slide where I bring up Google Maps. And I’m like, “I used to work here, and the Hawley Arms is here.” I’d hang around hoping to spot Amy Winehouse.
When Winehouse died, I was working as a journalist and my editor sent me down to report on the crowds gathering outside her flat. They were smoking weed and drinking vodka at 11am. It was like they’d all agreed what to do. It was this shared, collective experience.
But when you lose someone who isn’t famous - someone you were close to - everyone, even siblings, mourns differently. It’s actually very lonely.
You can still predict what they’d say and how they’d feel about things, but it’s gone from a two-way, loving thing to a one-sided relationship overnight.
My dad had a real sense of humour. He came to the UK and embraced beer, beef and sports cars. His favourite thing was me taking the piss out of him. Mum taught English as a foreign language in Tower Hamlets. She’d take her students to the job centre one day and to see a Shakespeare play the next. I think they were frustrated performers themselves, in a way. They’d definitely be in the front row of my gigs.
People say to me, ‘Oh, how awful about your parents’ and I want to say ‘But they were so much fun! They were so ridiculous!’
You don’t always want to see them through the lens of them leaving so soon, so young. It was the same with Amy Winehouse. For ten years we could only see her through the prism of dying too soon, but now we’re ready to talk about her.
“With my parents, there was plenty of trauma, but there was so much joy, too. I choose to write about those bits. ”
I spent my 20s desperate to write. I did a writing course but I was writing in the voice of a white middle-aged man. I couldn’t go near my own experiences.
And I was very self-critical. There’s something about the loss of control that comes with death that makes your inner voice very cruel, I think.
I had to have a hard word with myself. You need to tone down that harsh voice if you’re ever going to do anything creative.
In the early days, grief is exhausting. It’s like living two lives - one, where you’re processing your loss and one where you’re doing all of the things you have to do like brushing your teeth or making a sandwich.
Creativity is very hard, too, when you’re first grieving. You’re constantly imagining that the person is there when they’re not, which takes up a lot of creative energy.
My show isn’t about the first gasp of grief, though. My mum died in 2000, and my dad died in 2003.
What does a twenty-year-old grief look like next to a one-month-old grief? It’s like having a grown-up child and meeting someone with a newborn. You want to say “It’ll get better.”
That can come off as cruel, though. You just need to listen.
I’ve always loved stories. I’m like, ’Tell me more!’ My maternal grandmother died before I was born and my mum and dad talked her into existence for me.
Without knowing it, they were showing me the mechanics of long-term grief. You want people to meet the people you loved, even if they’re gone, so you share their stories.
I feel like it’s really unfair that they’re not talked about any more. But the show gives me a chance to put them in front of an audience, to present them as the characters they were.
It’s magical to bring them back to life for an hour.”