Manu Rishi Chadha reveals why he won’t write any story set in the lockdown or Covid-19 crisis – bollywood

Actor-writer Manu Rishi Chadha is sure about the one thing he won’t do after the lockdown: write any story which involves that or the Covid-19 crisis. This is a decision he took early on.

Asked what transpired for him to decide this, when makers are already in the process of even registering titles for potential films on the crisis, he says, “I worked a lot in 2019, so when this was announced, I thought chalo ghar pe baithte hain. But thanks to news channels and social media, the kind of information and news we got, I started getting scared. I realised I shouldn’t be.”

The actor-writer further adds that he decided he should write a script in 15 days. “I started giving myself homework. I would always complain ‘till when will I write for directors and producers?’ I grew up in a crowded place like Chandni Chowk in Delhi, so there have been many characters in memory,” he shares.

From a crowded upbringing like that, to now being in solitude, with just his family, life has changed completely.

The 49-year-old tells us, “After the 15th day, I felt I should start cooking, because anyway my job is to cook stories! I focused on special things this time around, and decided that I will not write about the lockdown, nothing like a love story in lockdown, thriller set in this phase, or how to survive, or someone died in this. Rather, I would write stories about real people, like a milk man wanting to become a cricketer. I started reading books like An Unsuitable Boy by Karan Johar, Urdu-Hindi dictionary, Ghalib’s shayari, Murakami too, but I couldn’t connect too much with the philosophy.”

Chadha is grateful that he has his writing to escape into when not working as an actor, so he can keep himself occupied. But he agrees that this period is bound to lead to a rise in mental health issues among people.

“When you sit at home for just three days due to a fever, you start worrying about food and everything. I am thankful that I can survive in my imaginative world, but many people don’t have that. Their imagination is limited to ‘biwi ne kya khaya, bachhon ne kya khaya, ghar ki kisht kaise doonga’ Unpe lockdown ka asar toh padh raha hai. As a writer, there is a fight in my mind between internal and external, but as a human, as a father, husband, I am a little worried about what will happen,” he signs off.

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