If you are a popular Bollywood actress, you will be the center of attention wherever you go.
Sometimes actress Dia Mirza uses the public attention to her advantage. She is most passionate about climate change and uses her fame for it.
But sometimes doing so creates difficulties. In the middle of an interview with BBC 100 Women as she was talking to us about climate change, the hotel room bell rang.
When the hotel staff found out that he was a guest, they made a collage of his photos and presented them as a gift.
He accepted the gift and continued his speech as he left. He said, “The biggest problem of climate change is egoistic men who don’t want to change.”
He was referring to the heads of international companies. “The polluters know their decisions are killing our land and people, so they have no excuse to change.”
Dia Mirza is included in this year’s BBC 100 Women list. This list is of 100 most inspiring and influential women in the world.
The 2023 list includes women working on climate change.
Dia Mirza was born in South India where she was surrounded by greenery. So it was not surprising that 20 years ago, when her career in films and modeling began to take off, she decided to become part of the environmental protection campaign.
In 2017, she became a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador where she spoke for the United Nations Environment Programme.
She repeatedly talks in interviews about her childhood days when clothes were passed down from the elders to the new generation and it was not considered bad to use old clothes every year.
She says that she has started this tradition once again in her home. For example, on the occasion of his son’s second birthday, he threw a Safar Plastic and Safar West party. This means that the decorations used in the birthday party are not thrown away and will now be reused.
She says several times that ‘It is important to follow what you say and be an example.’
Dia refused to use the hotel’s plastic bottles, preferring to use her own bottle.
“How can I advocate for sustainable living if I don’t practice it myself,” she asks.
The topic of our conversation revolved around gender equality, which has been linked not only to environmental change but also to her experience as a film actress.
In the year 2000, Dia Mirza was 19 years old when she won the Asia-Pacific Hussain pageant. Remembering that time, Daya advises you not to give this right to anyone so that they consider you as a thing and not a human being.
“I refused to wear a two-piece three-piece suit at the Miss Asia Pacific beauty pageant.”
She soon started her modeling career but was told by an industry insider that she was probably too fair and beautiful to be a model but she was definitely too short.
“I don’t think what he said affected me because someone who knew nothing was putting me in a box and deciding what I should and shouldn’t do,” says Dia Mirza.
She faced gender bias throughout her career.
“When I started working, film sets were patriarchal, there were very few women on sets. Male colleagues were allowed to come late and behave unprofessionally.
“We didn’t even have places for the actresses outside the film location.”
Despite these early experiences, Dia Mirza is optimistic about the future and says there are signs of improvement.
“There was a time when women didn’t get lead roles in Indian cinema after a certain age,” she says. Men still get lead roles, even though they are no longer young, she says.
We have released a film called Dhak Dhak. It is a beautiful story about four women of different ages who go out on a motorcycle together.
It has taken 110 years for the Indian film industry to tell such a story. I have waited 23 years to play such a role.
Outside the film industry, Dia Mirza wants gender equality in other fields as well. In 2021, they got married in a traditional Indian ceremony performed by a Pandit instead of a Pandit.
In fact, she was influenced by the Pandit who arranged the marriage of another friend of hers. “I knew this was what I wanted.”
There was a debate in India about why women are not allowed to do any work even today.
He has always been interested in breaking tradition. They did not follow the Kanyadan ritual in which the father gives his daughter’s hand to the groom. “My grandfather used to say that daughters are not something to be given on marriage.”
This is a good thought. My mother had said that the Kanyadan ritual will not be performed at my wedding.
As a Bollywood reporter I have followed the career of Dia Mirza. People appreciate their beauty, without realizing that they also support environmental protection.
“I get hope from the youth,” she says. Their creativity, problem-solving skills and multi-tasking skills and most importantly love and empathy for others.
Daya waits for the interview to end so that she can meet her son. He is waiting for them below.
I then asked him one last question: Which role do you like the most, an actor, an environmental activist or a UN ambassador?
In response, she says, “Being a mother.” I have this opportunity to change the future generations of the world.