Here's why Corona Khichdi, a short film by 11 IISc students and alumni is hilarious  

All the actors have shot their parts while staying at home during the lockdown, maintaining strict social distancing. All of them live in different parts of the world, from Texas to Kolkata
The film was released on April 27
The film was released on April 27

The lockdown is undoubtedly granting a lot of us time to unleash our creative streaks. In a span of a couple of months, we saw a lot of new artists, singers, dancers and filmmakers on our Facebook and Instagram timelines. Turns out, scientists are no different. A group of 11 scientists and researchers from IISc Bengaluru have now come up with a short film called Corona Khichdi which was shot during the lockdown.

All of the 11 researchers who were part of the short film live in different parts of the world — Bengaluru, Kolkata, Indore, New York, Texas, France, Singapore and Japan. However, all of them are IISs students or alumni and were part of the institute's theatre club. The film is conceptualised and written by IISc researcher Amit Roy and Prasenjit Biswas, an alumnus. "It was somewhere around the second lockdown began that we realised that this will go on for a while and wanted to do something to stay positive. One day during the lockdown, a few of us were talking about how we must also do something creative. Eventually, we decided on making a short film," says Amit.

But what would it be about? That was when it hit Amit that all of them struggle with cooking. "We always lament to each other about different struggles that come up when one decides to cook a meal," says Amit. "So I thought, why not make a film on khichdi. It is probably the easiest dish to cook and one can never go wrong with it. I immediately wrote a script and sent it across to Prasenjit. He liked it and we thought we must take this forward," he says.

Now, coordinating with the other nine researchers and getting their parts shot was certainly a challenge, especially when all of them lived in countries with different time zones. "These days, I am awake at night and I sleep in the morning. I got used to Prasenjit's timezone," laughs Amit. "To my surprise. everyone was immediately on board. They made khichdi, shot their respective portions and sent it to me," he says.

It took the team somewhere around a week to produce the film. "There were issues in coordinating, obviously. I wanted everyone to be confined in space while shooting and shoot with a background so generic, that the viewer gets an idea that everyone is in the same place. Some of the actors had to reshoot their portions and send it again. However, in the end, it all came out well," he says.

Amit says that short film has received an overwhelming response from all over. "Our institute has now asked us to create a few videos to spread awareness about COVID and ways to prevent," he says.

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