Radio Then, Social Media Now, It's a Double-Edged Sword: Sara

Communication has been the bedrock of human civilisation since time immemorial. The languages and the technological developments have been catalysed by the inherent need of humans for communication. But, in the age of social media and hyper-connectivity, is communication having more of a negative impact on the human species? Actress Sara Ali Khan doesn’t think so.

The actress feels that like every ground-breaking development in human history, social media too is on a spectrum of the good and the bad. It’s up to people, how they use it, like one of the greatest discoveries, the fire. As much as fire has helped humans evolve with the application of heat to food, the first industrial revolution and other things, it can also bring upon massive destruction.

The actress, who is gearing up for her upcoming film ‘Ae Watan Mere Watan’, spoke with IANS about the film, the impact of communication in the age of digital, her experience of using the props with an old world charm and how she won her audience back after a difficult year of 2020.

Talking about the impact of social media, Sara told IANS: “I guess it depends on how you use it. You cannot shy away from it in current times. The world is on social media.”

“People in the interior parts of the country know me because of social media, I can reach out to them and tell them about everything. It's similar to the radio, which helped in amplifying the message of unity and resilience in pre-Independence India. When there was no communication, there was peace but then there was no freedom. We have to ensure that the way we use communication doesn’t have any negative impact,” she added.

‘Ae Watan Mere Watan’ is her first period film, when asked about the experience of working with props, Sara told IANS: “It was very interesting actually. It took a very little amount of time for me luckily to get to know how the old radio and props function because I and the setting dada became very good friends on the film. Before the take, we realised that the ‘Reset’ was nobody doing faster than me on the set.”

The actress further mentioned, “It was an old radio broadcasting device, so we had to put the record on the device, press the button, then the record player would come down, then we had to press another button then the turntable would start. If you stop it abruptly, it won’t immediately turn off and reset. There was a process to it, the device was like any other actor on set jiske final checks bahut zaroori the.”

Sara's film ‘Atrangi Re’ clocked 2 years of its release in December, and is one of her films which brought her a lot of appreciation from the audience.

The actress said that the film was the one thing that helped her brave through 2020, which she calls the worst year of her life.

Sara said: “2020 was the worst year of my life. I had disappointed my audience, they accepted me right after ‘Kedarnath’, I was the one who disappointed them. To come out of that and to win the love of my audience back was a huge personal victory for me. The only thing that kept me going was my character of Rinku in ‘Atrangi Re’, Dhanush and Aanand L. Rai.”

‘Ae Watan Mere Watan’ is set to release on Prime Video on March 21.