‘My daughter hasn’t seen the courtyard yet’
An eternal optimist, Shilpa Shetty Kundra, like many others dealing with the lockdown, has got ample time for some moral introspection. The actor admits that her viewpoint about a lot of things in life has changed.
“I’m looking at the situation in a positive way. It has got me thinking about all the designer bags and clothes that I have, and I felt, ‘what’s the use of all of this at the end’. I’m rethinking on what it is that I really need… The needs have to be segregated from the wants,” she says.
Given the problems that so many are facing due to the pandemic, Kundra, 44, feels grateful that she and her family haven’t faced any issues during this lockdown. However, she admits that there were some hiccups when it came to her three-month-old daughter, Samisha, whom she welcomed via surrogacy. “I can’t call it a problem, as people will laugh and say that this can’t even be a problem. I’m not breastfeeding, obviously, so you need the right formula that’s easy on the child. Not finding the formula powder was a genuine problem as the imports had shut... It’s a problem but it’s not an impossibility to cope with,” she shares.
Besides, the actor says, getting her daughter the second immunisation dose, which must be given in the first 10 to 12 weeks, was also a challenge. “I had to literally beg and plead for a paediatrician to come home and give it. I didn’t want to step out with the child as the shot was already delayed by 15 days. So yes, these things are hard for a mother. I’m so cautious that my child has not been out of the house, not even in the courtyard,” kundra tells us.
While the Covid-19 crisis has brought distress to the people and the economy of the country, Kundra is focusing on the brighter side of things. “I live right at the beach and I’ve never seen it so clean. It just makes me realise the damage that we’ve caused to the universe. It’s time to introspect, take the learning and put it to practice,” says the actor, adding that it has also “translated into us spending quality time with family, which is a luxury for a lot of people.”