Lockdown: How Bollywood stars are parenting in quarantine

Mumbai: Professional work may have come to a halt amid the nation-wide lockdown due to coronavirus, but Bollywood stars have found themselves playing multiple roles for their kids in quarantine- from being their teachers, to engaging with them in activities as friends.

India is currently under the lockdown with around 1.3 billion people asked to stay home in view of the coronavirus outbreak.

Actor Neha Dhupia, who has a one-and-a-half year old daughter Mehr with actor-husband Angad Bedi, says the couple is trying to follow the routine that their daughter would’ve had at school.

“I’m spending a lot of time with my daughter, teaching her things, trying to follow a syllabus that she would be because she goes to Parent Toddler. She was learning a lot at her school with me but now I’m trying to keep the same rhythm going and teaching her everything, from numbers, to alphabets, to reading more books,” Dhupia told PTI.

For Angad, the lockdown has come with a silver lining. As both Neha and him were “always on the go”, the quarantine period is bringing him closer to her daughter.

“There is joy in spending time with one another. To see our little one grow up in front of us. I had missed her for 21 days when she was away with her mom on Roadies’. When I left her, she wasn’t walking, she was crawling. She has now come back to me, obviously gained some inches in height and is walking, finding her way. It is the most heartening thing to see.”

The “Inside Edge” actor says Mehr is a quick learnershe tries to pull off the downward dog pose as she watches Neha do Yoga.

“I try to paint with her, as much as I can. It’s just amazing to see her scribble all over her notebooks, magazines. I try to figure out if she’s left handed or right, but as of now she’s using both her hands! These are the little things you watch really closely, Angad said.

Actor Sunny Leone, who has three children daughters Nisha and two sons Noah and Asher has also shifted her focus to homeschooling, which she says “is not necessarily hard.”

“It is a process that takes a few hours to complete, depending on the activity. It’s amazing because it provides a structure for Nisha, she’s able to keep on learning and keep observing the information she’d normally do in school,” the actor said.

Leone understands that virtual learning can deprive children of on-ground learning, but amid a crisis such as this, she, along with her husband Daniel, are doing everything to make the kids comfortable.

“Of course she’s missing her friends, outdoor activities and her amazing teachers, but Daniel and I are trying our best. The boys also have their online schooling that’s happening as well. They are only two but the little bit of interaction they have with their teachers during classes does help with their learning,” she said.

Actor Shilpa Shetty Kundra has been documenting her parenting on Instagram, uploading snippets with her son Viaan, where the duo is exercising, baking and learning new crafts.

Describing parenting in quarantine as a “dichotomy of emotions,” Shilpa wrote in one of her posts, “I am concerned about what’s happening around us while we are hoping and praying for the situation to get better across the world, I’m also valuing and spending extra time with Viaan every day.”

The stars, however, believe that parenting in quarantine does not mean losing focus from oneself. While Neha and Angad are learning new crafts the former is trying to sharpen her kitchen skills and staying fit Leone said she was just trying to strike a balance.

The actor, who recently started her digital chat show “Locked up with Sunny”, said, “I do the show while the children are sleeping so that they aren’t missing anything and I don’t either. I get to do my own thing for a while, I’ve got 90-min to two hours in a day that are just for me so I figured why not have a show and have some fun.