Tata Trusts has launched ‘Vajood Rahe Maujood’, a dementia awareness campaign focused on how the condition affects a person’s identity, not just memory. The film follows a mother showing early signs of dementia and her son, who steps in as her primary caregiver, played by Geeta Agarwal Sharma and Priyanshu Painyuli.
The campaign is anchored in the idea that early dementia symptoms are often brushed off as normal ageing or forgetfulness, even as the condition alters roles, relationships and everyday abilities that shape a person’s sense of self. By centring the caregiving dynamic between mother and son, the film also encourages greater involvement from men in caregiving, while choosing a woman as the protagonist reflects dementia’s disproportionately higher impact on women.
Shilpi Ghosh, Head of Brand & Marketing Communications at Tata Trusts, said the biggest barrier to addressing dementia in India is a lack of awareness, and that focusing on mild symptoms was a deliberate choice to nudge early behaviour change through persuasive, non-preachy storytelling.
Kalyan Challapalli of Wolfzhowl, the agency behind the campaign’s strategy, said research revealed dementia’s ripple effect across caregivers, families and the healthcare system, and pointed to a lack of regional-language vocabulary that makes early symptoms easier to dismiss.
Creative chief Keigan Pinto said a short-film format was chosen to let the identity loss be felt rather than listed as symptoms, with a poem written by the son serving as the emotional core of the story.
