‘DIFFERENTLY-ABLED SHOULD BE AT THE MOVIES TOO’

Hrithik Roshan says multiplexes should have better accessibility for the differently-abled; wants to work towards achieving this goal

Earlier this year, Hrithik Roshan got much critical acclaim for his outing as a visuallychallenged man in Sanjay Gupta’s, Kaabil. Around that time, the actor went on record to say that thanks to his part, he has developed a deeper sense of understanding about differently-abled people.

Now, we have learnt that the actor wants to promote better infrastructure so that differently-abled people can have greater accessibility in public places. Speaking about the issue, Hrithik says, “Through my film’s characters, I have acquired a deeper understanding of the challenges that differentlyabled people face. One thing that has been playing on my mind is the need for our public places to be easily accessible to these people. It is a larger thought, but it is surprising that it hasn’t happened yet, even with over 20 million differently-abled people in India.”

On his part, Hrithik is appealing to multiplex chains to implement better infrastructure, and he is willing to help them with it. “Coming from the film fraternity, I would like to appeal to the multiplex chains to take them (differently-abled people) into consideration and work towards appropriate infrastructure — so that they aren’t deprived of the big screen experience of a film, and won’t have to think twice before stepping out for something as small as watching a movie,” he says.

At the time of Kaabil’s release in January, Hrithik had said, “I perhaps realised for the first time that the phrase ‘differently-abled’ is not just a polite word for disabled people. They are actually differently-abled… How I look at them has changed forever.”

PHOTO: YOGEN SHAH