Ice Bucket Challenge goes Desi

New Delhi: What started off as ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) awareness drive in America has now gone viral with celebs and commoners vying to take the challenge.

The Ice Bucket Challenge has now turned Desi as it has moved to India challenging stars like Bipasha Basu, Abishek Bachchan, Sania Mirza, Hansika Motwani, Daler Mehndi, Rohan Bopanna and a few more.

It’s cold, it’s fun and it’s contagious. The idea is simple: Take a bucket of ice water, dump it over your head, record it and post the video on social media. The stunt is raising awareness and money for causes such as Lou Gehrig’s disease, breast cancer and a camp for kids who have lost their fathers to war.

The participants can challenge anyone — maximum three people — to repeat the act within 24 hours of posting the video online. Those who refuse to take the challenge — such as American President Barack Obama — can donate $100 to ALS Association which encourages scientific research for the elimination of ALS.

Bollywood starlet Bipasha Basu posted a video of dousing herself with a bucket (rather small) of ice cold water on her Instagram account, nominating friends RockyS and Raj Kundra for the challenge. “@bipsluvurself: Accepted my best friend suzie’s #IceBucketChallenge!i am nominating RockyS and Raj Kundra!” Raj Kundra accepted Bipasha’s challenge and nominated Shruti Haasan, Deepika Padukone, R Madhvan and Masaba Gupta.

Actor Riteish Deshmukh, too, took up the challenge posed to him by Sania Mirza, and in turn dared friends Akshay Kumar, Abhishek Bachchan, Siddharth Malhotra, Pulkit Samrat and Ashish Chowdhry for it within 24 hours. “I accepted Sania Mirza’s Ice Bucket Challenge to spread the awareness for ALS. I further nominate my friends Akshay Kumar, Abhishek Bachchan, Siddharth Malhotra, Pulkit Samrat and Ashish Chowdhry. Gotta do it within 24hrs; time starts now.” Sidharth Malhotra accepted Riteish’s challenge and nominated Varun Dhawan, Arjun Kapoor and Mohit Suri. Akshay Kumar accepted the challenge and further nominated his wife, Twinkle Khanna, his business partner Ashvini Yardi and friends – Salman Khan and Johnny Lever – to participate and raise awareness for ALS.

It is said that Hansika Motwani is the first B-Town girl to take the challenge in Bollywood. The 23-year-old actress dumped a bucket of ice water on her and uploaded a video on her official Twitter page. “Thank you to everyone for challenging me to do the #icebucketchallenge to raise awareness for ALS. I nominate Sahil Nandu, Prashant Motwani, Tanvi Shah and Tejal Patel for the challenge,” she wrote.

However sportstars Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna, it seems, were the ones who brought the fever to India. Sania Mirza lived up to her standards of perfection and took the challenge twice. “Apparently, there wasn’t enough water the first time around,” she says and went on to take the challenge for the second time. Abhishek Bachchan, who was challenged by Ritesh Deshmukh, also took the plunge and in turn challenged his father Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan and the entire team of Happy New Year.

Bopanna was nominated by Indian-American tennis player Amrit Narsimhan took to Twitter on Sunday to post his icy video. A shivering Bopanna nominated Bengaluru FC and actor Rahul Bose for the challenge.  Bose chose to opt out, tweeting, “Been chosen by Rohan Bopanna for Ice Bucket Challenge to raise money, awareness for ALS. Have decided not to waste clean water, but will donate!” However, Bengaluru FC were happy to oblige. We accept Rohan’s challenge and nominate Ashwini Ponnappa, Sania Mirza and Yuvraj Singh. Good luck guys, let’s end ALS,” Club COO Mustafa Ghouse said.

Challenged by his child fan – Little Angel – Daler Mehndi took the ice bucket stunt saying “Thank you little angel! I am doing the ‪#‎IceBucketChallenge for you and for ‪#‎ALS awareness. I now nominate Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan and Priyanka Chopra to join this good cause. ‪#‎RabRakha”

Ashwini Ponappa completed the challenge as well and nominated fellow shuttler Jwala Gutta, swimmer Rehan Poncha and her friend and fashion designer Shravya Verma. Jwala Gutta, too, completed the challenge on Wednesday. “I accept the challenge given to me by my friend and partner Ashwini and before I freeze to death, I nominate Harshvardhan Rane, Nithiin, Dheeraj Keswani and Mahender Kapoor Li Ning India 🙂 You guys have 24 hours to go”

Mahesh Bhupathi – challenged by Sania Mirza – took the challenge and nominated his coach Scott Davidoff, shooter Abhinav Bindra and all the members of the Kabaddi team Jaipur Pink Panthers. Cricketer Yuvraj Singh accepted the challenge, albeit reluctantly. The video Yuvi put up, had him say, “I am not happy doing this. I really wanted to kill Sania Mirza when she nominated me. But I don’t have a choice and so, I accept the challenge.”

Self-challenged ‘Holiday’ actress Sonakshi Sinha shared a video of herself on Instagram participating in the Ice Bucket Challenge but with a twist. Instead of dumping icy cold water on her head, the actress overturns a bucket with just one ice cube in it. “So I just saved a lot of water and now I’m going to go donate the money,” she says in the video.

The Ice Bucket Challenge has seen people donate $7.3 overnight and total donations have reached a total of $23 million. More than 1.5 million videos were shared on Facebook between June 1 and August 19. The challenge was mentioned more than 2.2 million times on Twitter since July 29, after Frates’ appeal.

Bill Gates, George Bush, Novak Djokovic, Mickey Rourke, Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey, Robert Downey Jr, Jim Parson, Kaley Cuoco, Zoe Saldana, Justin Timberlake, Lil Wayne, Drake, Gwen Stefani, Mark Zuckerberg, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Cara Delevingne and Cristiano Ronaldo are among others who took the challenge.