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Outlook: The actress turning her back on Bollywood to follow her dad's dreams

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Sonia Mann taking a selfie at the farmer's protests in Delhi

11/03/2021 GMT

The actress turning her back on Bollywood to follow her dad's dreams

BBC World Service - Outlook, The actress turning her back on Bollywood to follow her dad's dreams

Sonia Mann's father wrote her a letter on her birth, which has guided her life ever since

Sonia Mann never got to meet her father as he was killed when she was just 16 days old. But he wrote her a letter on her birth, which has guided her life ever since.

Sonia Mann's life has been guided by the letter her father wrote to her on her birth. In September 1990, when she was just 16 days old, her father was killed in the Indian city of Amritsar, when he was on his way to meet her for the first time. Baldev Singh Mann was a left-wing activist and revolutionary, and in his letter he urged Sonia to continue his work. Sonia grew up to become an actress, but she tells Jo Fidgen that she carried his letter with her everywhere. In 2020, when thousands of India's farmers began protesting against the introduction of new agricultural laws, Sonia saw a chance to follow in her father's footsteps. She joined the protests on the edge of the city of Delhi and has turned her back on the world of movie-making to support them.

In 1967 New Yorker Chickie Donahue crossed oceans and hitched rides across a warzone to hand-deliver beers to his friends fighting in Vietnam. Not a soldier, Chickie relied on his charm and wit to get him to where he needed to go. But, as he told Mariana Des Forges, what began as a short morale-boosting mission soon became much more treacherous as Chickie found himself caught up in the deadly Lunar New Year attacks on what was then Saigon. 

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Picture: Sonia Mann taking a selfie at the farmer's protests in Delhi. Credit: Sakib Ali/Hindustan Times/Getty Images)

[Letter voiced by Sunil Kataria]

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