COVID-19: Out-of-job actor sells vegetables in Odisha to survive pandemic

Bhubaneswar (Odisha) [India], July 25 (ANI): The COVID-19 pandemic has hit many people hard, and the latest victim of the pandemic is Bollywood actor Kartika Sahoo from Odisha. With the entertainment industry almost non-functional and most productions on hold, the actor is forced to sell vegetables for a living.
Sahoo, who hails from the from Garadpur block of the Kendrapada district in Odisha, said that he went to Mumbai to try his luck in Bollywood at the age of 17. For many years he worked as a bodyguard to film stars and cricketers such as Amitabh Bachchan and Sachin Tendulkar, among others.
Lady luck shone on him in 2018, and he landed noticeable roles in the action sequences of many movies, he said while speaking with ANI. He also has a fight sequence with Akshay Kumar in his upcoming film 'Sooryavanshi'.
Just before the nationwide lockdown which started on March 22, Sahoo had returned home to Odisha after shooting a fight sequence in Jaipur. Since then, with no work, the actor has been living off his savings to sustain his family. But, after four months of no work, and a medical emergency, a major part of his savings was drained.
To find work, he moved to state capital Bhubaneswar, but to no avail. In the end, Sahoo had to resort to selling vegetables in Rasulgad there.
Sahoo is still hopeful and said that he'll again try his luck in Bollywood once the situation is back to normal, till then he'll struggle, like others, for survival. (ANI)