MUMBAI: After the resounding success of their viral video, Dear Aunty (that garnered over 1.5 million views organically), youth platform Yuvaa is back with another spoken word video, this time on Father’s Day, to address one of the most urgent & important issues faced by men in India: toxic masculinity.

The video, that features digital stars in actors Rajat Barmecha, Prit Kamani, rapper SlowCheeta (Chaitnya Sharma), dancer Kartik (MJ5) and writers Iresh Gupta & Divyanshu Malhotra, addresses the toxic idea of ‘Mardaangi’ (Masculinity) that is taught to boys in India, most often by their own fathers, who were told the same, growing up.

The video is a kind of homecoming for Rajat, who starred in cult Indian indie film Udaan over 10 years ago, where he played a sensitive boy under pressure to be a ‘strong man’ by his father, played by Ronit Roy; and used poetry to escape into his own world. But outside of Udaan, there has hardly been any content made around masculinity and how harmful it is to young boys and their fathers, who are both unable to express their love for each other because men are told not to express, on account of being ‘men’. This is an urgent issue in Indian society, where hundreds of years of patriarchal conditioning has been unfair not only to women, but also to men, who are told to never express or emote or cry, so they can ‘be a man’ (‘Mard ban yaar!’)

But this is a new generation of youth. The Gen Z wants to speak up, to express, to say what they feel without the fear of being judged. Even if their fathers couldn’t say ‘I love you’ to them, or give them a hug, they will not hold back. And this video tries to bring fathers and sons together by encouraging conversation, expression and just the joy of saying ‘I love you’! Yuvaa is looking to start a hashtag #HugyourPapa and encourage expressiveness of love, as this video is dedicated to all those fathers who couldn’t express, from all those sons who want to.