The road ahead...

Gurnaaz Kaur

This year it’s going to be the 17th season of MTV Roadies and, with the start of a new decade, the adventure reality show wants to start a revolution. The intent is to drive social change.

In Chandigarh to select the right candidates to bring about the revolution were the celebrity leaders. Actress Neha Dhupia, who has been a part of the show for five years now, says it’s time the youth got involved in driving something meaningful. “This time, instead of going all out to win Roadies for yourself, it’s time to make a change and do this for other people and the betterment of the country. It’s these baby steps that spark a revolution and we want to facilitate them towards the right direction,” she says. According to her, everyone has a voice and if you are in 2020 and if you are not going to use your voice in the right direction, then you are not doing enough.

“The youth are our future leaders, so if we can turn around and change them, nothing like it. Whether it is safety of women, or raising a voice against the drug culture in Punjab, political uproar about so many things, climate change that one keeps talking about; we will be focusing on different things. Through the course of the journey, we could be stopping somewhere and saying ‘hey, this place needs to be cleaned’. Cleaning a riverside to cleaning people’s mentality, we are going to give out the right message.”

It being the longest running reality show that involves youth, the makers and the team collectively decided to channel the young minds and energy to bring a social impact. Talking of youth, we’ve seen the youth of India fighting against the CAA and the recent attack on JNU students by a masked mob; it has been quite a disturbing episode. Neha couldn’t agree more. “We are not citizens of this country because we collectively stand against violence but we also believe that we are not taking sides of any political parties, what we are actually taking side is of the law and order and we need to protect that under all circumstances.”

The actress, who has been quite vocal about various issues, both on social media and otherwise, thinks, “It’s great that the youth, social media, everyone in our country is coming forward and raising their voice for non-violence.” She says we will get there but the price that we are paying for it is not worth it. “This needs to stop.”

On a lighter note, being a parent has brought about a change indescribable and of course one to cherish. “I would never understand when people would say being a mom is the best feeling in the world, but it really is! I just stand by her cot before she wakes up just to see her stretch and my day is made. Be it ruffling up her hair or making her hair, giving her a bath, see her mess around, anything and everything about her makes me go crazy. I just can’t do without her.”

Now, that’s about being a mommy. What all does the daddy Angad do. On that, Neha says, it’s all about co-parenting. “You’ll be surprised to know the kind of things Angad does for her. We’ve never said that these are the things being demarcated for you because you are the father or these are things that I will be doing as a mother. It is 50-50, right through the centre. And it’s all amazing.”

Last we heard parenting was keeping Neha so busy that work took a backseat but as the New Year dawns, there is a lot on her plate, it seems. The actress says other than No Filter Neha, her podcast under her production company, and MTV Roadies, she is going to be working on, “Creating a lot more content under my production company and yes many more acting jobs are lined up for this year. But number one priority is always going to be baby Mehr.”

gurnaaz@tribunemail.com