Shashank vyas shares his new poem 'kab tak?', says it's time our lakshmis became kaalis

Jyothi Venkatesh

Apart from being a wonderful actor, Shashank Vyas is a fabulous poet too. Pick any of his poems from his Instagram, and you are bound to get goosebumps. The words are so deep, that even if you are not passionate about poetry, you will fall in love with his creations. And he is not one to shut his eyes to the problems happening around. Be it the plight of migrant labourers, or Hindu-Muslim unity, or Sushant Singh Rajput's untimely death, the "Laila Manju" actor expresses his emotions and feelings through his poem.

Shashank was devastated by the recent Hathras case, where a 19-year-old girl was gang-raped by four men, and he realised that it's time women stood up for themselves and fought to protect their self. This case and the others that happened in Buxar, Jhansi, and Gumla, made him question "Kab Tak?" and the poet in him pushed him to write about it.

He said, "Every day there is at least one rape case that gets reported. It's every day. And I think now we should stop saying things like 'strict action should be taken against the accused', or 'make it a fast track case', or cite examples of other countries where a rape accused is killed. Enough of all that now."

"I think women these days should fight for themselves. They should defend themselves. If a victim is alive, she should be given the right to choose the punishment for those monsters, and if she is not, then the other women in her family should decide the punishment. How long will they wait for the law and judiciary to take action? And even if the accused is arrested, they are being fed on the taxpayer's money, so what good is that. I think it's high time women took things under their control," he adds.

"Kab Tak?" is Shashank's most ambitious project and the actor tried to make it a full package by creating a video, adding narration and music in it. The video is in an animated form and he said, "I wanted it in animation form because even for a video I didn't want anyone to go through a traumatising experience. Moreover, putting it in an animated version gave me the liberty to make the video as real as I can. It did not take me long to write the poem, but the rest of the things took time. Though I hired professionals, creatively I was involved throughout and made sure everything fit perfectly."

The video is a perfect blend of powerful music and hard-hitting words, which will definitely push every woman to teach these monsters a lesson, it's high time they they took charge. And he has portrayed it beautifully through the animation. The video will touch your soul and will definitely give you goosebumps. Through his poem, Shashank wants the women of the country to fight for their safety and honour. He said, "Once the women or girls of our country become daring enough to beat the shit out of those monsters, believe me, no one will ever think of doing something like that to a woman even in their dreams. We are not in the time of Mahabharat, where Krishna comes to save Draupadi. Today girls don't need to wait for a Krishna to come and save them. It's time our Lakshmis became Kaalis."

The "Balika Vadhu" star also spoke about his fearless attitude on social media where he speaks his mind out without being bothered about getting trolled or criticised. He said, "My parents have given me good values, good education, and if they are ok with the things I do, then I don't care what the others say. I don't need their certificate. I do it for myself. I am not someone who keeps things inside, I need to let it out." "I will always write what I feel. Sometimes people ask me 'what difference my poem or story will make', and I just want to tell them that by doing something at least I started somewhere, but by commenting like that you are still far away from the change you can bring." Shashank signs off.