Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari: Alcoholism is leading to abuse in the lockdown

Filmmaker Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari confesses that though she thought twice before putting out a tweet against domestic violence cases in the lockdown period, it was something she feels strongly about.  

Telling us what made her write it, the 40-year-old says, “I have seen that domestic abuse is a huge thing because of alcoholism. I saw it in the house of someone I know, it is a problem. The truth is, you are in a society where alcohol is a form of shying away from handling the situation. Right now there are so many stories about losing jobs, not having enough money to sustain, men find a way in alcohol, and when that stress is not managed correctly, it leads to abuse at home.”

Adding how it impacts children, she further tells us, “It leads to the child growing up in an environment seeing the man of the house do it. Therefore, I wrote ‘handle it calmly’, because if you do not, it leads to destruction and division of families and mental instability, of not just yourself, but everyone around you. You are going and putting the little money you can save for a rainy day, in alcohol. Then what about the family?”

Apart from expressing her thoughts on the crisis and the lockdown on social media, Tiwari has spent the past one-and-a-half months finishing scripts, and also her debut novel, nearing completion.

“I have also been cooking,” she informs us, “I got into that zone where you have children at home and you have to feed them, so that came as a default. After Panga released, there was so much happening I didn’t get time sit and write, so I did that. Then we are working on the screenplay of my biopic on Narayan and Sudha Murthy, which I will direct and is being co-written by my husband Nitesh Tiwari and other writers. By June, I should also finish my novel which I started writing after Bareilly Ki Barfi. It’s almost been two-and-a-half years.”