Ashish Chowdhry on COVID-19 Crisis

Our family has been victims of terror attacks, we’ve gone through worse in life

The world is reeling under the shock of the coronavirus pandemic and economies have come to an absolute standstill.

Even as uncertainty looms, actor Ashish Chowdhry is rather positive and is trying to instil the same feeling in his children, too. “We, as a family, have gone through worse in our life, especially being victims of terror attacks. We’ve gone through way too much in life for my kids to realise that this is not an issue that can’t be handled,” says the actor, who lost his sister Monica and brother-in-law Ajit during 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.

Having said that, Chowdhry adds that his kids — son Agasthya and daughters Salara and Sammah — are not in a denial mode, and are quite aware of what’s happening around.

“They realise what kind of hardships people are going though. I did a little bit of charity and I made my kids sit by my side as I did it. I explained to them why I was doing it, so they are value the fact they have a roof over their heads and food to eat,” he says. Other than his kids and wife, actor Samita Bangargi, Chowdhry’s late sister’s kids — son Kanishq (21) and daughter Ananaya (17) — also live with him.

The 41-year-old shares how he always motivates them saying this too shall pass.

“I’ve always maintained that

I’m a father of five. I keep telling them that this may not be the worst, and it’s not that anything will not come after this. We’ve to be prepared, whether it is death, accident, natural calamity or pandemic, we have to overcome it,” he adds, asserting that following the guidelines laid down by the government “is the way to fight this particular crisis”.

The actor further says that he looks at every problem as an opportunity to learn and also teach people around him.

“I know it’s bad but it was also bad when the 26/11 attacks happened. How do we explain what is worst?” he concludes.