Prateik Babbar believes it is high time people in India stopped discriminating on the basis of caste, creed, religion, gender and sexual orientation. The actor, who walked the ramp at Lakme Fashion Week, said it is important for the growth of the nation that people proudly own their individuality.
“Inclusion is the need of the hour. We, as a society, need to be open-minded. The biases in our society stems from the orthodox mentality. It is very deep-rooted in our country, but we need to wake up. There are too many different kinds of people in this world. Not just drags or gays, everybody is different from each other. We should proudly own our individuality,” Prateik said. “My latest film ‘Mulk’ also dealt with a kind discrimination. But this discrimination should not be there. Live and let live is the policy we need to swear by,” he added.
Prateik said the fact that designer Sohaya Misra was challenging the social norms motivated him to join the show as one of the showstoppers. Misra’s line, titled ‘Bye Felicia’, implying ‘dismissing the irrelevant’, is inspired by the drag culture, a silent protest against the society and its definition of normalcy.
“The concept of the show was issue-based and I jumped at it the moment Sohaya told me about it. Being a drag is still a taboo or a question mark in our society. I wanted to represent that there is nothing wrong with it. They are just being themselves. We also want to be ourselves and people are okay with it. I thought why not give them the freedom to be themselves.”
The actor said being in a creative field makes him prejudice-free and he will be more than happy to put out a drag act on-screen if given an opportunity. “The fact that I am an artiste makes me more open to such things. If I could get an opportunity to make people aware about the fact that there is nothing wrong in being yourself I will be more than happy. I want the world to understand we are all human beings and have the right to be free,” he said.
