4 min readJun 28, 2026 06:57 AM IST
First published on: Jun 28, 2026 at 06:57 AM IST
The creepiest part of the death of 26-year-old Ketan Agarwal, allegedly murdered by his fiancée, Siya Goyal, 22, and her paramour, is the tearjerking video she posted on Instagram soon after his death. Agarwal was serenading her with a gigantic sunflower in a car filled with colourful bouquets. The roof opened to reveal gorgeous stems above as well, and the lyrics of Aankhon mein teri ajab si ajab si adayein hain played romantically in the background. The footage moves to the (ostensibly) happy couple close dancing, in this carefully orchestrated, made-for-Insta proposal. (In the light of facts emerging, a chilling reminder of the frightening gaps between projection and reality.)
Time will reveal if Siya Goyal really shoved Ketan Agarwal off a cliff. But his sordid end points to the disturbing performative pressure around engagements, driven by the “For-the-Gram” culture, a puzzling phenomenon inexplicable to anyone over 40. Since I am of the age where many of my classmates and friends’ adult children are “settling down”, I often see highly staged, embarrassingly cheesy marriage proposals posted online. The setting will involve a pristine beach, the girl in a pale, gauzy dress with the man in smart linens, on one knee, brandishing what else but the predictable solitaire diamond. The hashtag will read #hitched, parents and other family members will gush and repost the congratulations. Weirder still is that many of these matches are completely arranged. The roka has already happened, but the families have hired fireworks, professional photographers and drone videographers to portray an entirely fictional, Hollywood-inspired, romcom scene. For what? To brag — on Instagram.
Splashy drama has always been part and parcel of the big fat Indian wedding. There’s an ever pressing burden not just to walk down the aisle, but to do so in spectacular fashion. However, it’s one thing to dance in a glittering lehenga on a Karan Johar film-inspired set, but entirely another to participate in a cinematically recreated delusion, especially made for Insta. Does honest spontaneity for life’s precious moments count for nothing anymore? Today, the Insta-engagement farce is totally legit, that celebrates a future no one has seen, while the present of the freshly betrothed couple is so fragile and new. It sounds almost old school to say there’s value in protecting the sanctity of one’s private life. To some of us at least, the Insta-brag of intimate details comes across as hopelessly cringe, and shallow.
Somebody needs to drill it into Indian parents’ heads — getting married is not an achievement. It’s a milestone, yes, but that’s about it. Lest I be accused of being an unromantic cynic (having myself agreed to marry in a weak moment on a drunken New Year’s Eve), I genuinely can’t believe an entire generation of affluent Indians need these curated grand gestures to feel validated. The wedding planners are the ones having the last laugh; the “pre-wedding shoot” is an integral part of their package. A beachside proposal in Goa—with props like rose petals showering down, a make-up artist to doll up the bride and some banal monologue lifted from whichever third-rate romance movie is currently trending — can cost upwards of Rs 5 lakh. Agarwal and Siya Goyal were heading to Bali precisely for this sort of picture-perfect shoot when his passport mysteriously went missing, one of the many red flags preceding this tragedy.
The circumstances surrounding Agarwal’s death are a hark-back to sobering Shakespearean wisdom, the famous paradox, fair is foul, and foul is fair. Appearances can be endlessly deceiving. What looks happy and pure may also contain heartbreaking evil. Judging situations based on face value is fraught because we all exist and act out from a headspace of perpetual moral confusion. A modern love triangle serves as a cautionary note to inherent human hypocrisy. It turns out, whatever our decisions, they will come back to haunt us—in this lifetime itself.
The writer is director, Hutkay Films
