One for all

BENGALURU: They are known for their abilities to cast the glow of glamour on celebrities, but when the pandemic made life grim, some of Sandalwood’s biggest fashion designers got to work, helping with Covid care. Laxmi Krishna’s day usually starts with calls from actors and directors for discussions on various projects. But these days, everything has taken a back seat and her focus is on making arrangements for people need of medical help. “Right now the biggest problems that people are facing are getting a hospital bed, medicine supplies and oxygen concentrators.

And a lot of people reach out to me for help,” says Krishna, whose last project was Bigg Boss Kannada Season 8. She says that having a doctor in the family is a huge help. “My brother is an ICU specialist at the Covid centre of KLS in Hoskote.

I try to learn stuff from him so that I am not passing on any wrong information,” says Krishna, who lost her father- in-law to Covid recently. Krishna emphasizes that nowadays there is so much information at your fingertips that merely passing it on is not enough.

“If I am giving a number to someone, I make sure that it is verified or I myself call to check if it is genuine or not,” she says. When the number of cases was going up, fashion designer Riyaz Pasha reached out to his fellow workers in the profession to see if they could all help with Covid, he barely got a response.

“If people say they have connections why not use it in the right way? It was getting frustrating for me to see so many people lose their lives for information,” says Pasha.

However, those who did respond to him are part of a WhatsApp group called SOS Bangalore, through which they try to help with medicines and oxygen concentrators. Bharghavi Vikyathi, known for working closely with actor Sreeleela, shares the same views. She says, “Privileges can come in many forms.

It’s up to us how we use it.” Vikyathi has been organising blood donation and plasma donation camps, and is now planning to reach out to the elderly in old age homes to get them vaccinated. She is also distributing food for frontline workers. “Every life matters at this point, and we have to do our best, rather than just wait for things to fall in place,” Vikyathi says.