Coronavirus Lockdown Leaves Kubbra Sait Worried About Her Next Paycheque As Films And Live Shows Get Cancelled

Kubbra Sait had been sharing postcard-worthy photos from Ireland on her social media accounts. However, she clarifies she wasn’t there for a vacation, but working on an international series whose shoot has since been suspended amid the coronavirus pandemic, leaving Sait in a quandary.

Prodded about the project, she hints, “Search online what’s the biggest production in Ireland right now”, and the answer was Foundation. The 36-year-old actor had set aside four months in her diary for the shoot.

She shares, “I knew that this project was going to have me busy till June, so I didn’t take anything up (in India) till then, and now knowing that this is also going to get pushed, I’m literally sitting on nothing. When you’re talking about artistes taking a huge beating (because of the situation), it’s true because I really don’t know where my next cheque is going to come from.”

The Sacred Games actor says the production halt stretched from three to four weeks initially, to eight to 12 weeks. And Sait says it would have helped at least if she could do live events, but now everything is locked down.

Nevertheless, she’s being optimistic ever since she returned to Mumbai on March 13. She equates leaving Ireland the night she was informed about the halt, to “dodging a bullet”. “I was freaking out about being quarantined in India. I had this feeling that you go to any government hospital, and you realise (that as a country) we’re not ready to deal with a collapse... I read about families that came back from Spain, a 17-year-old breaking down and saying, ‘It has been seven hours, we have not got water’. Or look at the unclean toilet facilities. How do you expect people to make peace with that?,” she asks.

Also read: Sonam Kapoor compares UK and India’s response to coronavirus as she flies back home, says ‘our govt is doing its best’

But to her surprise, the time taken to get out of the aircraft and then out of the airport was just 40 minutes. Sait says her temperature was recorded, and she was let go. Now she’s in self-quarantine, almost. “I’ve not stepped out of my house to eat dinner or socialise. I’m staying indoors as much as possible, as this is your basic responsibility towards yourself and the community. Now is the time to exercise it, and not wait for rules to come into place,” she shares.