Gehraiyaan intimacy director Dar Gai on family in Ukraine: ‘They’re stuck’

Ukrainian director Dar Gai is well known in India for her work as the intimacy director in the recently-released movie Gehraiyaan. The director lives with her better half in Mumbai yet has family back in her home country Ukraine. Given the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, it has been a tough few weeks for Dar. In a new interview, she uncovered that several of her family members are hiding in various parts of the country as the war has escalated.

Talking to the Times of India, Dar said, “My parents tried to leave Kyiv for several days, but they couldn’t because there was a lot of traffic as many people were trying to get to safer places. However, they later went to our village, which is around 45 minutes away from Kyiv.”

She added, “My grandmother, who is 78, refused to leave from there because she said, ‘Who will fight here? I want to fight. I don’t want to leave.’ So, she is in there with my stepfather. My mother and brother travelled to the border to send the women and kids across. They are on their way back to stay with my grandmother. However, the bridge that connects our village to other roads was bombed, so they cannot get to the village. They are stuck somewhere in the middle of Ukraine, trying to find out if there’s some safe way to go back to Kyiv.”