THE FILM INDUSTRY WORKERS ARE ALSO HUMAN BEINGS !

Ali Peter John

The one great misunderstanding has been about the film industry, which many in high places think is a place where people are all "naachne gaane wale'"who roll in money, have huge and luxurious bungalows and apartments, fleets of the best cars and a retinue of servants and have nothing to worry about. Who will tell them that the truth is so very different from the image some people have given this industry ?

There are four different classes of people in this good, bad,sad and mad industry and it is high time people knew this reality....

There are the legends, superstars ,stars and star-directors and filmmakers who have been lucky to taste unprecedented success and it is this class of the Industry which has all the riches, luxuries and live in dream worlds of their own built by themselves.....

There is a second class which can be called the middle class which consists of smaller actors, character actors, leading producers,
directors, music directors, lyricists, writers and well-known technicians who have a reasonably good and comfortable life ,but are still insecure because they are not very sure about how long their success will last.....

In the third class are lesser known actors, junior artists, dancers and the various assistants who are good till they are good enough or they face the curse of being forgotten and not being remembered again, unless they hit the big time again...

And in the fourth class are thousands of mazdoors and the growing number of strugglers who have been coming to the city of dreams in thousands every day....

It is the fourth class of people in this industry who have been living a life full of despair, desperation and disillusionment. These are the young and not so young people from different parts of the country who have in most cases left their homes and families to chase their dreams in a city where dreams generally die easily and fast.

It is these strugglers and men and women who live in paying guest accommodations, living four or even five in a room and paying through their nose the kind of heavy rents and deposits which they can not afford, but still have to pay if they have to stay on in the city to fulfill their ambitions and dreams some day.They spend most of their time walking around looking for work which rarely comes. They have to depend on make-shift hotels and dhaabas and even the large number of vada paav stalls which has opened up in every corner of the city .These strugglers who have among their ranks budding actors, writers, song writers and composers have to live under the constant threat of being thrown out by their land lords and being humiliated and even beaten up by men who they owe money. Most of them depend on the money sent to them by their parents or other relatives and friends and are in serious trouble when the money stops coming.

They have been living in a dire and dark situation, but never has the situation been as bad for them as it is now ,ever since the lockdown. They have no chance of finding any work, they have nothing or very little to eat and they have still to keep their spirits high because in this industry no one cares about how you struggle,but how healthy and good you are.

It is this class of people in the industry that has been asking for help in their bad days. True ,stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar have come to their rescue, but will what they have offered as help be enough to solved the problems the desperate ones are facing ?

In a last ditch effort, they have made an appeal to the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Mr.Uddhav Thackeray to come to their help in these, the most difficult times for them like all the others. They have said that they have not had any work since the lockdown was clamped and so have been living in desperate conditions and are finding it difficult to live in a city like Mumbai. They have not been paying their rents for which they are being harassed by some of the owners of the places they live in. They have talked about their rents piling up and their debts increasing manifold.They have a long list of their grievances,but who will listen to them ?

These workers and strugglers have no facilities like Insurance,Gratuity and Povident Funds .They have to live from day to day and very few of them find work for more than ten days in a month and even if they find work, payments are not made in time and sometimes not paid at all because their employers know that they have no support system to fall back on.

The Industry pays the highest taxes to the government, the stars rise to any occasion
to help the people of the country.Some of its stars can make a very big difference to any cause connected with the government, but it has rarely been given its due credit....

If there is one time when the governments can show that they don't have any bias or prejudice against the Industry, this is the time they can prove it. And they can start showing their interests and intention by starting to help the thousands of workers and strugglers. True ,the Industry has associations and unions to solve problems, but isn't the government supposed to solve the problems of all Indians ?And aren't the people of the film industry, the people who aslo belong to the country and have their right to work, the dignity of labour and right to earn a decent livelihood for themselves and their families ?

Wake up,all you people in power and show that you have a heart and that you care.I know you have a crowd of other problems to find solutions, but in heaven's name please find someone solution to the plight of those who work in this industry which is bigger and better than many other industries and has never given the government any reason to complain but on the contrary has only given their best to make this great country a better country.