This year Ramadan feels easier: Zareen Khan

It is Zareen Khan’s birthday today on May 14. The actor is hopeful of a surprise from her family within the limited options available in the lockdown. Also observing Ramadan, this birthday is a mixed bag of emotions for her. “I have always been excited about my birthday right from May 1 to 14,” says Zareen who is spending lockdown with her sister and mother in Mumbai.“I start the day by cutting a cake with mom and follow it up with a party with friends. But this year meeting friends is not possible, and cake will perhaps be baked at home.”
Navigating different stages of the lockdown from “feeling strange in the beginning because we are so used to going out for work, to being happy with family”, Zareen says now the lockdown is making her edgy. “Whatever our emotions, we don’t have another option than staying home, that’s the only way to fight Covid.”
Amid it all, Zareen is glad she is passing Ramadan in the lockdown. “I was always working during Ramadan and couldn’t observe roza perfectly as I had to wear makeup, which is not permitted. This year Ramadan feels easier, just like it was when we were kids. I am waking up early morning for sehri and liking the way I can pray peacefully this year, which is important because I don’t see any other way to get out of this situation.” With no domestic help at hand, Zareen and her sister have taken over home chores, filling up her time in between sehri and iftari. “Besides, ghar ka kaam is the best workout if you are actually doing it and not just making videos. My friends tell me that we are the only ones losing weight in lockdown!”
While lockdown has thrown film shooting in limbo, Zareen feels “lucky because my films hadn’t started shooting yet”. She was set to start a Bollywood film in London and her third Punjabi film opposite Binnu Dhillon in May this year. “It’s a romantic genre with a comic flavour. Incidentally, for my third film also the association with Gippy Grewal remains. He was cast opposite me in , and . Though he is not paired with me in , it’s his production and is directed by Smeep Kang.”