Tata Trusts’ “Vajood Rahe Maujood” Film Recasts Dementia as Identity Loss, Not Forgetfulness

~ Tata Trusts’ World Alzheimer’s Month film recasts dementia as identity slipping away — a birthday poem, a mother-son frame, and a push past “budhapa aa gaya” ~

Mumbai, September 2026: The Tata Trusts have rolled out “Vajood Rahe Maujood” (identity must remain intact) for World Alzheimer’s Month, a dementia-awareness film that moves the conversation off forgetfulness and onto the slower, harder thing: a person losing the roles, relationships and everyday abilities that make them who they are. The short film follows a mother showing early signs of dementia and her son as primary caregiver — with a birthday poem as the device that lets him start a conversation he has been putting off.

Geeta Agarwal Sharma (Laapataa Ladies, 12th Fail) plays the mother; Priyanshu Painyuli (Mirzapur, Extraction) plays her son. Casting is the strategy. Putting a woman at the centre flags the disproportionate impact of dementia on women; putting a son in the caregiver seat pushes back on the idea that this work is automatically a daughter’s or daughter-in-law’s job. The film also takes aim at the household shrug — Budhapa aa gaya, bhulne ki bimari that still lets families file early signs under old age.

Shilpi Ghosh, head, brand & marketing communications, Tata Trusts, said: “Of the various barriers that Dementia faces in India, the biggest is a lack of awareness – the misestimation, the misattribution, the dismissal. Addressing patients exhibiting mild symptoms was therefore a conscious choice of audience for nudging behavior change. And when ‘loss of identity’ and its various dimensions across the stages of the disease, were uncovered as an insight, we knew we had something powerful to work with, that would lead to captivating communication that was persuasive and not preachy. Communication that was not just empathetic but also encouraged action, so caregivers and their loved ones could have an improved quality of life. We’re hopeful that the campaign will be able to move the needle on dementia from ignorance to awareness.”

The butterfly effect, and a missing vocabulary

Strategic communications came from Wolfzhowl. Kalyan Challapalli, founder and chief of strategy, said qualitative work showed dementia cannot be treated as a health issue alone — it ripples through caregivers, families, the healthcare system and the economy, a chain the agency calls “The Butterfly Effect.” A sharper insight: India still lacks easy regional-language words for the disease and its early changes, which makes it simpler to dismiss. “Because you cannot ask people to recognise what they do not have the language to describe. The campaign thus, offers a common ground that hopefully makes the condition easier to decipher, talk about and act on, in homes and communities, not just in clinics,” Challapalli said.

Keigan Pinto, creative chief, writer and director of the film, said: “The creative challenge was to make something as invisible as identity loss felt without reducing dementia to a list of symptoms. That is why we chose to make this a short film rather than a conventional public service announcement. We wanted to give the audience enough time to inhabit an everyday relationship and notice the small shifts that can otherwise be overlooked. The poem which the son wrote for his mother on her birthday is a creative device used to carry the message of care as the greatest gift. Through the poem, the son has a difficult conversation with his mother, while empathising with her. Vajood Rahe Maujood, the tagline sums up the vision of this campaign, to encourage more people to act towards preserving their identity for as long as possible.”

The numbers behind the film are blunt. India’s 60+ population is projected to exceed 347 million by 2050. An estimated 45% of dementia cases are potentially preventable or delayable, and changes linked to the condition can start 10–20 years before symptoms show. Tata Trusts, set up in 1892 and among Asia’s largest philanthropic institutions, is asking families to clock the small shifts while there is still time to act.

MAM editorial team The strategists and writers at Mad About Marketing, writing up what we see in the work every week.