Nobody nominated actress Sonakshi Sinha in the global Ice Bucket Challenge but she dunked herself in freezing water anyway.
The Lootera actress yesterday jumped ahead of the queue to join the fledgling league of Indian celebrities - including Daler Menhdi, Bipasha Basu and Sania Mirza - in the ongoing charity chain that has been raising awareness and funds for Lou Gehrig's disease, medically known as Amytrophic Lateral Sclerosis or ALS.
According to rules, a participant of the Ice Bucket Challenge must be nominated by another person who has completed the challenge. For Shotgun Junior, however, rules are meant to be broken.
Uninvited, Sonakshi took the Ice Bucket Challenge. In a further twist of the rules, her bucket contained a solitary ice cube and the actress urged her fans to save water and simply donate to the charity. She posted her Ice Bucket video on Instagram and Facebook, and passed on the challenge to her fans.
Halfway across the globe, Sonakshi's frequent co-star Akshay Kumar upped the challenge by having 11 icy buckets of water upended on himself. Akshay, who is shooting a dance talent show in Cape Town, was tagged by actor Riteish Deshmukh and asked one of the dance show contestants to help.
All 11 contestants decided they wanted to, and so Akshay had the iciest time of all participants in the challenge so far. Eco-conscious Akshay used sea water, rather than tap.
The actor further generously donated to the charity as he was not able upload the video in 24 hours (rules say that those challenged have 24 hours in which to complete the task).
Akshay tweeted, "I accepted my friend @RiteishD's ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and did it within 24 hrs but unfortunately being in a different country & owing to bad connectivity I couldn't upload the video on time. So I'm donating to the ALS Association, you could too on www.als.org. Now I nominate my wife Twinkle Khanna, my business partner @AshviniYardi and my friends @BeingSalmanKhan and Johnny Lever to participate and raise awareness for ALS. And you've got to do it within 24 hours, your time starts now."
Akshay has now set the clock for his wife Twinkle Khanna, friends Salman Khan and Johnny Lever, and his business partner Ashvini Yardi.
All eyes on Salman now - can Alpha Khan outdo the Khiladi?
Meanwhile, Actress Mandira Bedi, nominated by TV actor Ashish Chowdhry, also joined the list of Ice Bucket Challengers. In her video, Mandira revealed that she lost a family member to ALS and is therefore doing her bit to create awareness. She, later, nominated actors Sohail Khan, Karan Wahi and music composer Vishal Dadlani to follow her lead.
