PR Balan and his actress-daughter Vidya in a still from the MARD video

Around the time I was starting the MARD (Men Against Rape and Discrimination) initiative on gender awareness, I was shooting Shaadi Ke Side Effects (2014) with Vidya (Balan). We were generally chatting about the campaign, when she told me her own story. And that her father, after having two daughters, faced tremendous pressure from within his family and the community to go for another child -- in search of the male child, I suppose. Vidya's father stood his ground. He had two healthy kids, he said. So why should he treat them differently?