Ashamed by helplessness, office, Nila devotes his Delhi work staff for Covid-19 relief
In the fight against the ongoing health crisis, National Award winning director Nila Madhab Panda is working round the clock with his staff in Delhi, to assist people looking for medical facilities.
He says, “For 20 days, I could not sleep. (That is when) I put my whole Delhi office at work. There was a time when I started feeling suffocated in this city where I’ve now lived for 25 years.” At that point, Panda, 47, reached out to his friends, and started supplying medicines. “We realised there was oxygen shortage. I got six cylinders from Bhubaneswar and started circulating it, and arranging oximeters. The most important step was when I started using social media to help,” he adds.
The way the crisis unfolded in the county, especially Delhi, raised an alarm. “You can have all the power and money but you can’t make a person survive when you don’t have oxygen,” he says.
Continuing his lashing, the I am Kalam (2010) maker states, “People died without oxygen. Shame on us. Just the modernity and money isn’t enough for one to survive.” While the pandemic might end soon, he rues, “we will always remember our people who we’ve lost because of helplessness”.
Panda, who explores environmental issues through his projects, adds, “The more you destroy nature, the more it’ll hunt you. We’ve dented the ecosystem.”