Preity had come home to celebrate Holi with her husband Gene Goodenough, her mother Nilprabha Zinta, and other family, and put up some nice pictures on Instagram. She thanked people for their support, and talked about the last few weeks being stressful for many people caught in the unrest in the region – a mix of relief and sympathy. Getting home safely and being with her family was the main thing in her message.
She had said she’d got home after being one of a number of Indian people whose travel had been made difficult in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. She said the journey had been stressful, and was grateful to be back in Mumbai in time for Holi with those she loved. Her post was really about safety, and family. The trouble had come after military action on February 28th, which caused big explosions and made people worry about a wider war in the area. This made travel difficult, and some people – including well-known faces – found themselves stuck away from home for a time.
Preity put a series of photos from her Holi party on social media, with Gene, her mother Nilprabha, and other family members.
One picture was a selfie of them all, looking happy and relaxed, which showed she was back to normal after being worried while she was abroad. In the caption to her Instagram post, she said she was thankful to be home and to be able to celebrate Holi, and also wished ‘lots of love and light’ to everyone celebrating – mixing her own relief with the festival’s ideas of colour, new beginnings and being together.
Preity used her position to send her best wishes and prayers to those who were still suffering, or were apart from their families. She talked about the basic things people affected needed: to be safe, to have food, love and warmth.
She showed she understood how hard the situation had been for a lot of communities.
Other famous people were also stuck in the area, as were relatives of public figures. However, a number of stars had got back safely, which showed how the trouble had affected people in different ways, and the problems of getting people home.
The trouble started after military actions which some people called preventative strikes – these caused big explosions in capital cities, and made relations between countries worse. The actions made the worry about the relationship between the US and Iran even bigger, and the possibility of the trouble in the Middle East getting wider. This affected travel to and from the area, and what governments and embassies were able to do. People and communities watched what was happening closely, as people who had had to leave home tried to find a way to get back, and for many, the weeks after were full of not knowing what would happen, and urgently trying to get people home safely.
On the work side, Preity is getting ready to come back to acting with the historical drama Lahore 1947. The film – directed by Rajkumar Santoshi and with backing from Aamir Khan – is set during the time of the Partition and will come out on Independence Day. Sunny Deol is the main actor, and Shabana Azmi, Ali Fazal and Abhimanyu Singh also have important parts. Karan Deol is in a supporting role, which adds to the interest in the film because of the different ages of the actors. For Preity, the film means coming back to important films, and gives her a chance to get people to pay attention to her work again after the difficult journey she had.
Preity Zinta’s public reaction was a good balance of being glad to be safe herself, worrying about others, and thinking about her work. The pictures of her Holi party showed a quiet way of celebrating being safe and being with family, while her words showed how big the human cost of trouble in the area had been.
