Actor-turned critic gets a taste of the Keralites’ wrath and wit

Kamaal R. Khan, also known as KRK, regularly hits headlines for criticising celebrities, mostly from Bollywood.

The actor-turned-critic, therefore, is used to some amount of backlash in the social media.

Yet, he was in for a big surprise – rather an unpleasant one at that – on Wednesday. His Twitter handle, which is followed by 3.68 million, was getting barraged with comments, mostly in a language he did not know.

Little could he have imagined that a tweet of his – addressed to actor Mohanlal — would enrage so many Keralites.

KRK, apparently, was not impressed to find that Mohanal had been cast to play Bhima in the ₹1,000-crore film Randamoozham (Mahabharata). So he tweeted at Mohanal: Sir, you look like Chota Bheem; so then how will you play the role of Bheem in Mahabharata? Why do you want to waste money of B.R. Shetty (producer)?

A few hours later, KRK was flummoxed.

He tweeted that he could not understand why the ‘Malayali people’ were abusing him since morning.

It is good that KRK could not read Malayalam; he would not have liked many of those comments.

The Malayalis, however, did ensure that he got a fair idea about what they thought of him, by writing in English and even in Hindi.

One of them also posted a clip of a film that KRK starred in and commented – tongue firmly in cheek, of course — that he deserved an Oscar for it. They also reminded him that Mohanlal had won multiple national awards for acting and attached scenes from some of his celebrated films. And yes, there were some creative memes as well.

All of which must have been a new experience for KRK, who has had battles on Twitter with several big names in Bollywood, ranging from Shah Rukh Khan to Sonakshi Sinha. For the socially active Malayalis though, it was another day in office.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi (for comparing Kerala to Somalia), the United States President Donald Trump (for criticising Cuban leader Fidel Castro) and Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova (for not knowing about Sachin Tendulkar) had all tasted the wrath – and the wit – of the Malayali in the social media.