Renuka Vyavahare (BOMBAY TIMES; May 15, 2020)

Ali Fazal and Richa Chadha were to tie the knot in April this year. However, they had to push their wedding to the end of the year, due to the Coronavirus outbreak and the lockdown. Ali, for the first time, opens up about his wedding and life in the lockdown.

He says, “We were supposed to get married, but it has been pushed. Of course, it is a bit disheartening because we were all geared up, and preparations were on in full swing. But it’s fine. We didn’t want to make a big noise about our wedding. It is just the next step forward in our lives. The idea is to celebrate our special day with people close to us, our friends and family. Once things settle down and when the time is right, hopefully, we will come back and the new world will celebrate with us. I don’t know what kind of wedding celebration it will be now, given the new norms, but let’s see.”

Talking about the lockdown, Ali shares, “For me, the biggest lesson learnt during this crisis is not to take your life, people in it, nature or any of it — be it a morsel on your plate or your biggest achievement — for granted. It’s all yours, till you are alive. And you need to love yourself.”

The actor also believes that this phase has made everyone more independent and equal. He explains, “It has made a lot of us self-reliant. I was used to the boarding school culture in my early years. Those years made me self-sufficient, and that helped. Cooking and cleaning should not be limited to a certain gender. I also hope that to a certain extent, the lockdown has wiped out the misogyny and patriarchy in our male-dominant value system.”

He adds, “We have a common invisible enemy, so we must join hands to fight it, as long as we follow the social distancing norms, and fall in line. The only way to judge how close we have become through this ongoing crisis is by seeing how we behave when we enter the new world. We will be wearing masks, and won’t be able to relate to each other the way we did before, as we won’t see each other’s expressions or smiles anymore. This phase has brought us closer, but it has also distanced us. Humanity should fight this big fight together.”