When you are helping others, sleep is the last thing that comes to your mind said Sonu Sood in conversation with Shubhraa Maheshwari, Chairperson of FLO -the women’s wing of the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) in Hyderabad.
“If you want to help somebody you should not worry about time. We don’t get time, but we must adjust and manage it,” Sonu Sood said while commenting on work-life balance.
“I get requests at the shooting locations too. Even after packing up and leaving the shooting set, many times I end up spending time till late at night as film industry workers approach me with problems of their near and dear, he said.
Sonu Sood the modern-day Karna who donated everything he had, Sonu Sood narrated an incident when he found a girl from Kolkata waiting to meet him while returning home from work in the middle of the night. The girl had some neurological issue, so he arranged for her to stay in Mumbai, and called up a famous neuro-specialists in Mumbai at midnight.
To his utter surprise, the doctor who he didn’t know responded at 2 am and in the morning and agreed to admit the girl. The girl spent the next five months in the hospital and is now quite healthy, he said. “In such situations, we don’t mind how much time we spend. If you want to help you must forget the time,” he added.
“Most of the people who joined us in our philanthropic mission are not known to us. We had never met them. But, they came forward to help us,” he said.
“We got connected to 7.5 lakh people during and after the pandemic. This helped us perform collect funds to perform 29 liver transplants and 45 kidney transplants, he said.
The pandemic is over, but still, people approach Sonu Sood with their problems. There is always a kilometer-long queue outside his house. “I was alone when we started this journey, but today many people have joined us and helped us. We are able to help people in such large numbers due to collaborative help, Sonu Sood said.
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“We can’t help or feed many people because our resources are limited. But we don’t leave any stone unturned to help people,” he said.
The journey continues…
When asked about his future plans, he said, “we are planning to set up a network of Old Age Homes. One is coming up at Shirdi. Another will come up in Telangana. Work on this has started in Punjab. We are also exploring options in UP. Our earnest hope and desire are to see that every state has an Old Age Home and a free School in near future,” he said.
Though there are many people who do Cheque Charities. But, the manner in which Sonu Sood gives his personal touch to everything he does is what makes him different.
“A girl suffering from a lung problem was airlifted from Nagpur to Hyderabad with her brother who accompanied her. But, unfortunately, she couldn’t be saved and eventually her brother too succumbed and their parents lost both their children. Hence Sonu makes it a point to visit them in Nagpur whenever possible. That is his personal touch.
As far as politics is concerned he said, “it is true that many politicians and political parties tried to lure me. Their offers were so tempting but nobody could refuse. But, my interest is elsewhere. No doubt I would want to associate with a political party that does a lot of service to society. But, as of now, I don’t have any interest in jumping into politics. I have much more to do in the film industry.”
Speaking about his upcoming film Fateh which is an action-thriller, he said it is on Cyber Crime. The film depicts how innocent people invariably end up as victims of crime. The film is based in Punjab, and Delhi, and might be released by end of the year.
The film is about the common man and depicts how the common man is exploited. It is a film on ‘One man’s war against India’s hidden enemy’, he announced.
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Replying to a question about how people in the film responded to the human tragedy and contributed to helping the victims and their families to tide over the difficult times, Sonu Sood said that many people in the film industry did their best, in their own way. “This encouraged me and made me commit to doing more,” he said.
“I have a strong connection with Hyderabad. My wife is a Telugu woman. Whatever I have achieved, I have learned working down south,” Sonu Sood shared.
“I will continue doing what I am doing till my last breath. We need people’s good wishes to do more,” he concluded.
