Mumbai, Oct 10 : Filmmaker Hansal Mehta decided to shed light on how the relentless working hours of the film industry end up taking a massive toll on the physical and mental health of all those involved.

Expressing his concern, the 'Scoop' maker penned on social media, "In our line of work, a 12-hour day is politely called a 'shift.' The truth is, between the chaos of shoots, the endless commute, hurried meals and barely a few hours of broken sleep, there's little left of us. Where does our mental health or physical well-being fit into this equation? Weekends are rarely weekends. Breaks are looked down upon. Somewhere along the way exhaustion became normalised and rest became a privilege (sic)."

Mehta also pointed out how the daily wagers are the most affected by these working conditions.

"Sometimes I wonder : can this really be called an industry if it runs on the relentless draining of its people? The hardest hit are those who have the least power - the daily wagers. They are always the first to arrive and the last to leave surviving in conditions we'd call inhuman anywhere else."

The 'Aligarh' maker revealed how things are even worse in the television industry.

He wrote, "On television, it's worse and now even OTT and films have slipped into the same pattern. We often celebrate the arrival of global corporations believing they'll bring better systems. But more often than not they simply adapt to the broken ones we already have. Because it's profitable."

Stressing the importance of well-being, Mehta said, "I truly believe that if we cared about well-being, ours and especially those who hold up the base of this pyramid we'd not only work better, but live better. The irony is that quality, efficiency, and even profit would follow. But first, we need to stop scoffing at the simple idea of rest. Because without that, what are we really building?"

/IANS