Actor Alaya F, who was seen in Jawaani Jaaneman (2020), is excited about 2022, as she has three projects lined up for release. Talking about how the past two years have been rather tough for her, she says, “It was mentally taxing for me to be away from the public eye for so long. I also had staff salaries to pay. I kept wondering that I’ll have to go back and ask my parents for their help and I hadn’t done that in three years!”

And that’s when she decided to use her free time productively. “After a point, I realised I can be super stressed and anxious about it or use this time as a blessing and work on myself. So, I invested my time and energy into social media and it became my way to remain visible,” she shares, adding, “During the lockdowns, social media was the biggest blessing for me. It paved the way for all the brands I endorse now. I found my social media identity and it added so much to the actor in me.”

On the personal front, the 24-year-old tested positive for Coronavirus a while ago and feels that it’s her yoga regime that prevented the coronavirus from impacting her immunity: “I feel this is the time when we should aim to be as healthy as we can. After the second lockdown, I was working non-stop. Now, I am slowly trying to get back to being as strong as I can be.”

In October last year, her mother, actor Pooja Bedi, tested positive and was trolled for being unvaccinated. “I’ve regular conversations with my mother, where I tell her to get jabbed. I keep pulling her leg since she isn’t permitted to enter any place that requires people to produce their vaccination certificates. But I’m fully vaccinated and so is everyone else in my family,” Alaya ends.