EXCLUSIVE | Aahana Kumra on the lockdown: 'Have friends who lost their parents as didn't get injection on time'

Aahana Kumra plays a pilot in Madhur Bhandarkar’s _India Lockdown_ who seems to be enamored by her neighbor, someone who’s just next door. They get intimate at one moment and share a chemistry that seems from attraction and loneliness. In an exclusive interview with Firstpost, the actress opened up on doing the role and working with Bhandarkar.

Excerpts from the interview:

On her preparation for the role and the lockdown

It was a shared experience that we all faced collectively as a nation. The meter or the range may have varied at that time. There were so many people who didn’t get their doses on time, I’ve friends who lost their parents because they didn’t get the injection on time. I remember one of my friends’ father passed away, and he cremated his father when we all were trying to wrap our heads around what exactly is Covid. Was it just a disease or was it something that was supposed to be taken seriously? People took it seriously when the second lockdown happened. Everyone was waking up thinking, ‘Who’s going next?’ It was an anxious time for everyone around the world. As Madhur sir said, it was important to document this part of history. Everyone has experienced wars in their lifetimes, and we have experienced this war as a generation, and that too with an unseen enemy. When this role came to me, it was very important for me to be a part of a storytelling like this. Everyone is not going to be able to make a film on the lockdown. Who better than Madhur Bhandarkar to tell hard-hitting and gritty stories? I felt the story would touch a chord globally.

On content being the ‘Queen’and cinema viewing

I agree, content is the queen. It’s a beautiful feeling to go inside the cinemas and the lights go dim and you’re transported into another world. What I incredibly, as an audience, love about OTT, is that cinema is a 2-hour film where the story and the characters revolve around one or two people. On OTT, there’s one story and then there are parallel stories. For example a show like Mirzapur where there are different characters or Shweta’s show Criminal Justice. It’s such a great space for women because finally, it’s not only about looking pretty or glaming up. We, as actors, now get offered far more deeply layered roles.

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On how cinema has taken a leaf from OTT

Suddenly, filmmakers are waking up and realizing that they have to work on the story. The reason why our audiences have not been going to the cinemas is not because they only want to watch magnum opuses, everyone will watch a good story told with utmost sincerity and if the intent is right. What has happened with OTT is that the intent has been correct.

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