Bollywood actor Dia Mirza faced backlash in June after she recounted an incident involving her five-year-old son, Avyaan Azaad Rekhi, who reportedly questioned an adult delivery worker for using a plastic bag. Now, the actor has clarified that her son did not disrespect the coconut water vendor.
She also defended him against trolls who called his behaviour privileged and elitist. Firstly, it was not during the peak of summer. So, those who are worried about the coconut vendor coming in the heat and supplying this coconut water to this household in a plastic bag was his livelihood. It was all about the optics that were created around the story, which were about how it was elitist and it was disrespectful to the coconut vendor. That was not the approach of the story, nor was it the reality. So, I don’t have to justify how I treat human beings. The child saw a coconut in a plastic bag. The child recognised that it was something we do not – if we don’t propagate it. The child had the agency and the awareness to say, ‘Please yeh wapas le jao hamare ghar mein. It’s not allowed. There is no disrespect here either. Dia was last seen in the show Operation Safed Sagar. The series, which also stars Jimmy Shergill, Siddharth, Abhay Verma, Prajakta Kohli and Mihir Ahuja, received critical appreciation. It is available to watch on nNetflix
In an interview with Zoom, Dia revealed that her son had simply voiced something that “people in their entire life are unable to”. She said, “Now, if a child is learning to say, ‘We do not use this’ – of course, everybody made it about the nariyal wala, which it was not. She further said that her son never disrespected the delivery worker and added, “Everybody who knows me knows how I treat people.
