‘WE HAVE TO WIN BACK SOME SENSE OF SENSITIVITY’

Ali Fazal hopes to see more than just happy slogans on getting back to work

Ali Fazal is just not ready to see happy slogans about getting back to work, after the deadly second wave of Covid-19. The actor, instead, hopes to witness some dedicated efforts to win back compassion.

“I lost my grandfather earlier this year. Main Lucknow gaya, and everybody in the house had Covid. I felt like it was a very privileged loss, kyunki main bahar ja raha hun aur wahan maine dekha ke ek kilometre tak chitayein jal rahi hain,” he says, recollecting the moment that made him realise the suffering endured by all as a “collective society”.

And, Fazal asserts that it will require time and effort to come out of this phase. “I don’t want to see a slogan that says, ‘Hey, we’ve come back on our feet and let’s go to work’. Sure, that’s positive. But, the real work lies (somewhere else), like being able to talk (to people about anything and everything to cope up),” shares the 34-year-old.

The Mirzapur star once again picks up a reference from his life to elaborate his point, saying, “When I went to Lucknow, my bigger job was not to do the funeral rituals for my grandfather, but to take care of all the patients in the house who are there and are alive.”

And, that’s when he realised how the virus and the race for survival has made everyone desensitised. “We have become numb. Ab darr lagta hai agar kisi ne photo dala ke ‘s**t kya ho gaya’. We have to win back compassion, some sense of sensitivity,” says the actor, adding that the only way out is to “think who are the people we can talk to, call up somebody and just cry out”.

Last seen in the web anthology series, Ray, in which he plays a successful businessman who is slowly losing a sense of reality and battling a mental breakdown, Fazal admits he managed to detach from the character, and didn’t let it affect him for long. “I was just being focused, as Srijit Mukherji wanted very minute dismantling and changes in the character, and slowly. So, it didn’t take a toll on me,” he signs off.

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PHOTO: YOGEN SHAH