Finally, Kamaal R. Khan has apologised.
The actor-turned-critic, who is primarily known for his offensive tweets against Bollywood stars, had compared actor Mohanlal to cartoon character Chhota Bheem on April 18, since when he has been trolled relentlessly by net-savvy Malayalis.
On Sunday morning, KRK, as he is better known, wrote on his Twitter handle, which is followed by more than 37 lakh people, addressing Mohanlal: “Sir, Sorry to call you Chhota Bheem. I didn’t know much about you. But, now I know that you are a superstar of Malayalam cinema.”
Malayalis had ensured that he knew all about Mohanlal. Ever since they heard about KRK’s tweet — about Mohanlal being cast as Bhim in the ₹1,000-crore multi-lingual film Mahabharata ( Randamoozham ) — they stormed into his Twitter and Facebook accounts to abuse and make fun of him. A group of Malayali hackers even threatened to attack his social media accounts if he didn’t apologise.
Though KRK has in the past picked up fights on Twitter with several popular stars and directors of Bollywood, including Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Ajay Devgan, Deepika Padukone, Anushka Sharma, Sonakshi Sinha and Vikram Bhatt, he had never experienced the kind of backlash as he did in l’affaire Mohanlal.
As soon as he put out a tweet — on any subject — he was bombarded with abusive comments from Malayalis. Just about every post on his Facebook account too attracted more than 10,000 comments.
KRK wasn’t prepared for that. He had underestimated not just the huge popularity Mohanal enjoys among Malayalis but the formidable presence they have in the social media, as well.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi had compared Kerala to Somalia in a speech in Thiruvananthapuram last year, they had trolled him in the most creative of ways, coming up with a series of rather humorous memes. They had also trolled U.S. President Donald Trump, who had written a Facebook sharply criticising Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova, who said she had not heard of Sachin Tendulkar.
“We are the people who taught Sharapova Malayalam with one Facebook post,” somebody had reminded Trump.
As for KRK, he is assured that he would continue to be haunted by the Malayalis. One of them also regretted that he lost the direction of his life with KRK’s apology and wrote to him: “Till now my life had a purpose: get up every morning and abuse you till night falls,” he wrote.
