Insha Ghaii: A Life Rewritten by Love, Loss, and Resilience

In 2024, Insha Ghai’s world came crashing down. She was just 29, enjoying the second year of being married, dreaming of a glorious future, when her husband died. Her husband, Ankit, went suddenly and without warning.

She lived in denial in the first few days. In the following months, her world completely changed. Grief didn’t arrive quietly. For Insha, it arrived accompanied by judgment, with speculation, with strangers deciding how she should mourn.

The judgment was sometimes magnified on Instagram. As a content creator who had been posting about her life since 2013, her work was intricately linked with her online world.

When Insha began posting photos on Instagram in 2013, she didn’t know she was stepping into a career. Back then, the platform was quite basic – just images, and had no Stories, no Reels, and no algorithmic virality.

She was a college student, getting dressed for class and posting pictures, like many others. “It wasn’t even a thing,” she recalls. “There was no monetisation, no features. You just clicked a picture and uploaded it.”

Her affinity towards social media increased, and despite having an MBA in Finance and a job as an Investment Banker, she quit to pursue content creation full-time.

Now she has over 7 lakh followers – and has seen every side of living life online.

This is her story of navigating life as a content creator, through everything it may throw at you.

Love and a New Beginning

For most of her twenties, marriage wasn’t on Insha’s mind. She was enjoying the growth in her career, pursuing content creation full-time and finally finding ways to monetise her content.

“I wanted to be somebody. I wanted to be independent,” she said.

I wanted to be somebody. I wanted to be independent.

But as is the case for many Indian households, the weight of expectations plays on women’s minds, and she began considering prospects at 27. That’s when she met Ankit.

The timeline was short of courtship was short, but she was excited for her new life.

“Like any girl, I was excited for the wedding wardrobe, getting to know the new family better, and the new chapter. Everything was about to change, as it does for a girl when she gets married,” she said.

Marriage brought with it not just a partner but also a collaborator.

Ankit happily and actively became part of her content journey. “He was very supportive, and enjoyed content creation himself,” Insha recollected.

He would suggest ideas, send her trends, and often the couple turned real-life jokes into Instagram skits. “A lot of our Reels were just us turning our daily life into content,” she added.

For their followers, these snippets painted the picture of a young couple building a life together, full of laughter, travel, young love and partnership.

A Shattering Loss

Then, everything changed.

On Rakhi 2024, Insha was at her parents’ home when she received a call that changed her life permanently. Her husband has passed away.

The loss was sudden and devastating.

“In the beginning, I was in denial,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it. I kept thinking, I was married to him, I was so close to him, and he’s not here anymore. Not a breakup. Not separation. Just… gone. How is that possible?”

I kept thinking, I was married to him, I was so close to him, and he’s not here anymore. Not a breakup. Not separation. Just… gone. How is that possible?

She announced it online soon after. For a woman whose life and work were both online, grief came with intense scrutiny.

Dealing With Online Scrutiny: Hate and Healing

“People said, ‘How can you be here after something like this? How can you still post?”, she remembered. But there was an irony in all the judgment. “If I had stayed silent, it would have been backlash too. There was no right thing to do.”

People commented on how she dressed, how she looked, and even critiqued her if she wore lip balm. She received comments that said, “How can she smile at such a time?” She was expected to mourn a certain way – one that fit a society’s expectation of a grieving widow.

The contrast to how others were treated when grieving was stark. “If I were in a corporate job, people would have encouraged me to go back to work, to distract myself. But because my work is on social media, people said the opposite. They couldn’t understand that this is my bread and butter,” said Insha.

Beyond ugly comments, there were even conspiracy theories, where people wanted to create content just to ride the wave of the news. “People made videos blaming me for his death. They wanted views,” she highlighted.

In the midst of this, there was kindness too.

“I’ve had women come up to me on the street, hug me, and say, ‘We’re proud of you. We saw your journey. You gave us hope.’ Those moments keep me going,” she smiled.

Finding Solace in Faith

Insha was wracked with questions internally: “Why me? Why would this happen to me?”

She found some answers and solace in spirituality. She took up reading the Bhagavad Gita on a recommendation, and her journey through spirituality and faith is what helped her cope the most.

While they didn’t give direct explanations to explain her loss, they gave her a framework for living that resonated closely with her circumstances.

“It taught me that you come alone, you go alone. No soul has the same timeline. You can’t attach your soul to someone else’s forever,” she said.

Her faith helped her build resilience.

Living With Grief

At 30 years of age, Insha is now back to rebuilding her life.

It took her a while, but she eventually got back to working and creating content. On her profile, you can now see her attending events and collaborating with others. But behind the smiling facade, a person is continuing to deal with grief, the effects of which creep up on her often.

“It’s been more than a year, and I still dream about him,” she said. “He’s always there at the back of my mind. No matter how much I distract myself, when I’m back in my own space, it all comes back. The intensity has come down, but grief doesn’t go away. I don’t think it ever will.”

It’s been more than a year, and I still dream about him.

She’s accepted it as a part of her journey, and that it was a battle God intended for her to take on,for whatever reason that may be.

Besides the grief, as she heals, there’s guilt, too. On good days, when she laughs or feels joy, she questions herself. “Even if nobody says anything, I feel guilty for being happy,” she admitted.

Her family and friends were her biggest support systems during this time.

She goes on, believing in hope. She reiterated, “The day you lose hope, you lose everything.”

Even though her life has turned upside down, and her new normal looks vastly different now, she’s determined to heal and move forward.

Insha’s story is one of strength. It’s messy, imperfect, but undeniably brave.