The Film and Television Institute of India (
FTII
), as part of its stay-at-home campaign during the
COVID-19
outbreak, has roped in the Doordarshan series' Mahabharat star and casting director
Gufi Paintal, who has reprised his cult role of Shakuni mama for the campaign.
Paintal's younger brother Kanwarjit is an alumni, and a former long-time faculty member at the FTII.
In the publicity campaign by the FTII, Gufi Paintal, who also served as a production designer of the show, reminds people of his lines as the cunning and craven Shakuni, whose challenge to the
Pandavas
in a game of dice made the latter lose everything.
As an allegory, he reminds people to not make a single bad decision and obey the
lockdown
, using the pandavas' cautionary tale of one crucial mistake.
"The FTII's stay-at-home campaign is being carried out through an external agency, and the personalities being featured in this campaign include some of its most famous alumni or long-time faculty members. The institute's chairman BP Singh, also famous for creating the CID series on TV, has been part of the campaign, as has been the renowned actor Mohan Agashe, who was also the director of the institute nearly two decades back. Others who have featured in the series include the filmmakers Rajkumar Hirani and Sriram Raghavan, both being alumni of the FTII. The institute, in its diamond jubilee year, has remained closed for all academic activities since mid-March."