Renuka Shahane had recently requested people to help her good friend and TV actress Nupur Alankar, who is currently facing financial distress amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Nupur’s savings have been stuck in the scam-hit Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) bank and now with no work due to the lockdown, she is facing a tough time. Her mother also needs immediate medical attention. Now, the actress has spoken about how to make ends meet, she sold off her jewellery and also borrowed money from her friends and relatives. 

She told a leading daily, “My mother had a mild heart attack in 2018. She couldn’t take the PMC collapse and suffered three more attacks on October 8, 13 and December 8, last year. However, she refused to be hospitalised, fearing that it would be a costly affair. I started practising alternative therapies as a secondary source of income, but it stopped due to the pandemic. By then, we had exhausted all our savings. My husband (Alankar Srivastava) and I had no choice but to rent out our flat for extra money and shift with our respective parents. However, the lockdown worsened my financial woes as my tenant vacated the flat. I had to borrow money to repay her down payment.”

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Friends and members from the fraternity did help, but eventually, she had to explore other options. She shared, “Help poured in from many friends, but the medical and other expenses kept rising. Then came a point where I started approaching various NGOs for free medicines. Soon, I realised that things had further spiralled out of control. That’s when I posted the details regarding my mother’s health complications on a crowdfunding platform. I was apprehensive initially, but my friend, actress Rajeshwari Sachdev, convinced me to do it for the sake of my mother. I have no shame in asking people for money, it’s for my mother’s treatment. I am especially grateful to Akshay Kumar, Renuka Shahane, Ayub Khan, Hetal Parmar, Darshan Zariwala, Manoj Joshi and CINTAA for helping me.”

However, the struggle is not over yet. Nupur said, “My mother can’t be hospitalised because of her flailing health, which makes her more susceptible to the novel coronavirus. For now, we will have to make do with whatever medical aid we can arrange for her at home.”

(Source: Bombay Times)