Amyra Dastur

The continuous extension of lockdown has now become a bone of neck for some people. You cannot swallow it; neither can you throw it out! Rather than enjoying with family, their daily routine is getting more and more annoying. Especially women’s who are facing domestic violence and are stuck at home helplessly. For them to overcome from this situation has become challenging.

To tackle such issues, a video was put together by Women in Films and Television India. The celebrities like Richa Chadha, Kalki Koechlin, Amyra Dastur, Pulkit Samrat, and Adil Hussain are spreading the message of peace and gender parity during the ongoing lockdown. The initiative taken by these celebrities was to support the campaign that takes stock of the issues tolerated out of weak mental health caused by the lockdown.

There are many videos of celebrities that went viral on social media in the last few months. Videos of them washing dishes, cooking, and other household chores. Here the artistes speak about how they have divided the chores of the house between themselves and their partner. For instance, in her video, Kalki can be seen talking about how she made breakfast while her partner took their dog for a walk. Adil, speaking in his native language Assamese, discusses how he enjoys cooking.

“The agenda of the video was to highlight the emotional stress people are going through and how that often leads to several things including domestic violence. This is a problem across the world and a campaign like this effectively speaks to a wide audience,” said Richa.

“Women could possibly be trapped and locked down at home unable to muster the courage to report crimes against them. The elderly could be feeling particularly hopeless in such situation. We urge anyone going through trauma to take to counselling on the helpline numbers available,” she added.

Richa feels that since India is a diverse society, if a message has to reach everyone, it has to be done in multiple languages.

“Involving artistes of different states was consciously done to create a larger impact and reach everyone across different cultural and socio-economic strata. People should be able to understand the language to absorb the message,” she said.