Actress Lin Laishram, who has worked in films like ‘Om Shanti Om’, ‘Mary Kom’ and ‘Rangoon’, told in a conversation with a media channel that the Covid pandemic has become a reason for racism in North-East India. She shared a fearful experience, she said, “When I was going back to my parent’s home from the airport, two people followed me and started calling me coronavirus.”
In a conversation with an English media channel, she said that she was feeling helpless and angry. Lin said, “I was feeling helpless and angry because many people from the North-East were being harassed in different ways. People refuse to deliver goods. Some girls were spat on the road after seeing them. Students were thrown out of their PGs and hostels. It was really sad to believe that we would be treated like this in our country.”
As Lin belongs to Imphal, Manipur, she also talked about the discrimination in the Bollywood film industry with the North-East Indians. According to Lin, when it comes to people from North East in Bollywood, they are bullied and asked to wear quirky costumes. She said, “The only person who belongs to the North-East in Bollywood is Danny Denzongpa. But we can’t relate to him because he speaks fluent Hindi and most of us can’t.”
Lin also commented on Priyanka Chopra as Mary Kom in her biopic “Mary Kom”. She said that Bollywood’s ‘desi girl’ should be replaced by a girl from northeast India as she could represent Mary Kom more efficiently.
Supporting her comment she cited an example and said that makers of the web series ‘The Family Man 2’ have cast Tamil actors to represent the local culture of Tamil Nadu. She further said that when South Indian culture can be accepted in Bollywood then why not North-Eastern culture?
Regarding her Bollywood journey, Lin said that despite the ups and downs, she entered Bollywood without any hesitation and second thought. She said, “I didn’t know that because of my looks, I would have to struggle differently. Forget godfather, I have never seen a Manipuri actor working in Bollywood before myself. It's been a decade in the industry. The mantra to survive is to keep trying and expect things to get better.”