Santa Calling Santas

actor 2020’s Surprise Santa has been has made the biggest impression on his son and little helper,

TRUE CALLING

47, whose Good Samaritan act

Growing up in the quaint city of Moga in Punjab, actor Sonu Sood watched his father serve langar to people outside his store, Bombay Cloth House, every week. His fondest childhood memory of his mother, a college professor in their hometown, is the one line she would often repeat: ‘Consider yourself successful the day you are able to help the needy when they aren’t expecting it from you, and if you’re able to change a life’.

These are words he’s carried with himself even today, in 2020, a year in which he emerged more heroic than any of the movie roles he’s ever played. This is a lesson he’s hoping to inspire in his sons (Eshaan, 18, and Ayaan, 12), leading by example.

The incident that triggered his efforts to help migrant workers travel back to their hometowns during the lockdown was the same thing anyone who peeked onto any main road in any major city would have seen this March: people walking home. Sonu happened to be distributing food in Thane when he came across a bunch of 350-odd people making their way to Karnataka.

“I thought ‘we can’t let them walk’,” he recalls. He applied for his first set of permissions and once they came through, there was no looking back. “I wasn’t trained or equipped to help so many people. But when you help people, that’s when you realise how powerful you can be. Especially when things reached the needy at the right time,” Sonu says, showing a glimpse of the ‘never-give-up-attitude’, which Eshaan says he admires about his dad. (See box on Page 14)

Visibly uncomfortable talking about mortgaging eight properties in Mumbai in an effort to raise ₹10 crore for the needy, Sonu calls it a personal and emotional step. “I always thought I came to this city (Mumbai) to become an actor. And yeah, I did become one and do movies in different languages, but when you do something like this that helps people, that’s when you connect with your soul. I feel this is what I came to Mumbai for,” says Sonu.

What of those who are trolling him? “You either react to people who point fingers or put the same effort into helping people. Instead of clarifying, get people to join the movement,” he says. Something he tried out with a few negative Dm-ers. “Some joined and now they feel embarrassed about it. I am just glad to welcome them,” he smiles.

His kids too have started getting involved in his lockdown projects, forwarding him messages they come across and following them up. But raising two boys in the age of social media is a huge responsibility. “There is so much exposure that empathy, goodness and hard work all need to be embedded in your system,” says the father. { An HT Brunch Exclusive }