Onkar Kulkarni (BOMBAY TIMES; April 12, 2020)

For actress Ileana D’Cruz, Easter celebrations are something that she looks forward to every year. However, she had never imagined an Easter Sunday like this year’s. With the lockdown in India, and all of us battling the Coronavirus outbreak, it’s all about bringing in the festivities over video calls. In a conversation with BT, Ileana shares Easter memories from better times, and tells us what today’s celebration will be like.

“I remember my mother making all sorts of lovely Easter eggs, like the chocolate and marzipan ones. When we were kids, she would also get little baskets and have us decorate them. My sisters and I would paint them and put little yellow chicks (of course, fake ones) in them, along with the eggs,” she says.

While her parents are in self-isolation in their hometown (in Goa), her sisters are in the US. “I miss being with my whole family, which means complete madness in the house (laughs!). I miss the noise and wondrous smells coming from the kitchen with my mother pottering about in there. If I was home right now, I would be inhaling the aromas of the freshly baked hot cross buns. I would have my sisters for company and we would be chatting away or bickering about something or the other. Being away from family means I don’t really celebrate the day.”

Ileana signs off saying that this year, it will only be about video calls, but she adds, “I am happy that we at least have this technology, which can help us feel that we are close to each other even when we are physically not. These are difficult times, but some of us are fortunate to have the amenities to be able to spend this lockdown in the comfort of our homes. We should be thankful for that. So, in this lockdown, we will celebrate Easter over video calls.”