Usually, the lanes of Aram Nagar, Versova, exude what’s called “hustle energy”. Not today, because they are now grappling with, what can be called a health crisis. “There’s no work,” sighs a Hindi film actor. Every week or month, a new show or a film arrives on screen, but on ground, there’s only news of something or the other getting shelved. “In the last one-and-a-half years, a dire situation has emerged in the Hindi film industry where work is concerned. It’s unfortunate, but projects aren’t getting made,” actor Mohd Zeeshan Ayyub tells us. Ayyub considers himself lucky to have had a regular flow of work, but many around him are out of luck. 

“There are projects which get shelved just two days before going on floors. People are blocking dates, but their payments are delayed and just a week before the filming, they are being told it’s not happening. There are many shows where shoots are stalled because people are asking for their payments to be cleared and the producers aren’t ready to pump in more money,” he says.