GOING VIRAL: Dia Mirza in spotlight after defending her tweet about Holi

In a tweet dated March 16, the 34-year-old actress contrasted water wastage during Holi with the suicides of farmers in drought-affected areas. 

She wrote, “The irony of the times we live in: farmers commit suicide due to drought and people waste water to ‘play’ #Holi. Go ahead call me anti-Hindu.” She was immediately savaged in a series of abusive tweets that also asked her what her water bill was and criticized her as ‘elitist’. Although the actress-producer has now apologised after backlash from different sections, she said the crisis is a sad reality. 

Dia said she did not have any intention to hurt any community and she just called for water conservation. “The fact remains that various parts of our country are experiencing severe water shortage. We may not have all the solutions to the scarcity problem or any other problem for that matter, but I believe that empathy for those most affected, acknowledging and understanding the challenges we face and taking the steps WE CAN as citizens, will only help.” 

She ended with this appeal, “Lastly, the exchange of opinions, thoughts and ideas is what makes interacting with people on Twitter and other platforms of Social Media as engaging as it is. Let’s remain receptive to one another even when we choose to disagree.”