DIVYA THANKS FANS AS POEM GOES VIRAL
Written by her brother and recited by the actor, the poem is a take on gender equality, a cause Divya espouses
As a nation, it won’t be wrong to say that we are obsessed with films and cricket. And actors, naturally, are looked up to. While we want to know everything about them, what their non-celeb siblings do is rarely known. And in actor Divya Dutta’s case, it took a beautiful poem recited by her for people to figure out how good a poet her brother, Dr Raahul Dutta is!
The poem, which Divya says doesn’t have any title, starts off with the line ‘Tumne Kaha Tha Hum Ek Hi Hain, Toh Apne Barabar Kar Do Na’ and emphasises on promises made by a couple to treat each other equally. But the wife feels it hasn’t turned out that way. The actor had recited the poem and posted a clip on Twitter on August 28, but it went viral after she recited it on comedian Kapil Sharma’s show. The clip from the show, posted on Facebook, has garnered over a million views.
Divya reveals how it all came together. “I am really surprised the way it is going viral. I have got hundreds of messages on WhatsApp. My brother has been writing these beautiful birthday poems for me since childhood, he’s now a busy doctor. As an actor, you feel a responsibility to take up causes, and I am known to have a voice. So we were sitting together one day, and thought of something around gender equality, and wondered who to get it written by. I asked Rahul, and was sure he’d refuse. But by next morning, he mailed me this, and it was so beautiful! We recorded a video too.”
Rahul says it all stemmed from the fact that as a hypnotherapist, his clients include women who always talk about the inequality they face at home. “The way me and Divya have been brought up, I have seen equality. The ladies who come to me for therapy are completely opposite — they talk about (the inequality). I always feel why is gender equality not there? When Divya told me, I poured my heart out,” he says.
Elaborating more about the atmosphere at their home, Rahul says, “It’s as simple as girls being given a time limit to come back home. There was no such thing at our house. We can come back at the same time, and go wherever we want to go, kiske saath, kahaan, (nothing like that). It’s been a liberating upbringing. We chose our professions. Our entire family comprises doctors, and Divya became an actor. We lost dad early... Mom was very supportive.”