In the satire-driven world of Internet memes, hits are created by the minute unlike in tinsel town where fates are decided every Friday.
And when it comes to Malayalam memes on Facebook, actor Salim Kumar is probably the uncrowned king.
For three years after winning the national award in 2011, the affable actor kept away from the silver screen owing to health issues. But, he remained live in people’s memory, thanks largely to the popular Facebook page, International Chalu Union (ICU), who used the actor’s image and his many witty dialogues effectively to give a satirical edge to their memes.
So when the Kerala Cartoon Academy brought together the actor and the young admins of ICU for an interaction during the ongoing national cartoon-caricature festival in the city on Friday, Salim Kumar lost no time in thanking the youngsters who had made a star on him on social media.
“Malayali audience needs only three weeks to forget an actor, and I was away from the scene for three years. You made my presence felt and helped me make a successful comeback to the film industry,” said the actor.
Salim Kumar marvelled at how many of his dialogues, delivered casually in films, had come to assume epic proportions in memes through their effective contextualisation. “It’s as if those dialogues were created for those memes,” he said.
Binu, one of the four admins of the Facebook page who attended the event, recollected that just like the character in the blockbuster Thenkasi Pattanam turned out to be big break for the actor, his characters such as Manavalan and Srank from the films, Pulivaal Kalyanam and Mayavi, proved to be big breaks for the ICU during its initial days.
When a member of the audience wanted to know his thoughts on the fake Whatsapp message on gangster Dawood Ibrahim’s death, the actor said the death of a person behind several riots in the country might have brought happiness to a few.
“But I didn’t set off any riots in Kerala, and yet got ‘killed’ over 15 times,” said Salim Kumar, amid laughter from the audience.
