Plans for sanitation and hygiene in slums is a dream way too far.
Indian filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra is making an individual effort to diversify the course of life, with the effect of PM Modi’s driven Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan.
We have two upcoming movies whirling around the necessity to build toilets: 1. Akshay Kumar and Bhumi Padnekar’s – Toilet: Ek Prem Katha, and 2. Mere Pyare Prime Minister, where both movies have created a quite buzz on bollywood talks. But, director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra has made a change in real world by constructing toilets in slums with the in
fluence of Gandhi’s model toilets at Sabarmati Ashram, since last 4 years. He has made 800 toilets in 4 years and still counting on, with no media interference or publicity.
Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, director of Rang De Basanti and Mirzya, is now shooting for Mere Pyare Prime Minister in a slum in Ghatkopar for which he got NOC from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation to build toilets in the area and he made 20, which includes 5 separate toilets for men, women and teachers in 2 municipal schools in Khandooba area.
He had meetings with slum dwellers and corporators of the area, and urged them to put Rs. 1 in donation box to let community workers give their dues. This project worked in association with NGO, Yuva Unstoppable and he also has been interacting with the community in depth to increase awareness for using toilets and catastrophe of open defecation.
Movie, Mere Pyare Prime Minister, whirls around 4 children living in a Mumbai slum , one of them wants to build a toilet for his single mother for which he makes an appeal to Prime Minister. This movie is now getting shot in a slum settlement behind Powai Lake, in Mumbai, where Mehra is again planning to build few more toilets and settle infrastructure of the area.
Amazing, he has been working in reel world and made a difference in real world.
