Since Onam, National Award winning actor Surabhi Lakshmi’s timeline on Twitter and Facebook has looked like an online war zone, with torrential abuses being thrown at her because she ate beef on a TV show.
Lakshmi was also targeted for posting an picture of Onam Sadhya with a chicken dish.
Though it is a practice for people from North Kerala to have non-vegetarian dishes along with the Onam Sadhya, people continued abusing Lakshmi for insulting the festival. The trolls said she hurt their sentiments as on Onam, only vegetarian dishes are served.
The Kerala Youth Commission has sought an enquiry by the police on to the issue.
Here are the few comments attacking her:
“Your activities don’t suit your name, better change it. You have certain agenda to do so.”
“Take pork next year, that might suit you better. Mind that take pork for next Eid -Ul- Fitar.”
“You would do whatever dirty things for money, that is what we saw in the TV.”
“You insulted your own community, you don’t deserve to be a Hindu,” laments another comment.
Some of the comments also threatened and abused her.
An Onam programme on Media One TV featured Lakshmi’s day out and her favourite eatery in Kozhikode. In the programme, she said that in one of the restaurants she frequently visits, beef is the signature dish. The programme also showed her tasting Malabar parotta with beef curry.
Channel Airing the Show Also Attacked
Online trolls also unleashed an attack on Media One channel, alleging that they aired the programme to hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus. Since the channel comes under Madhyamam broadcasting group. which has a Muslim management, they faced severe flak over the issue on social media.
Lakshmi has clarified that the programme was shot two to three weeks prior to Onam and that North Keralaites take non-vegetarian dishes even during Onam.
Speaking to The India Today, she said:
The channel has been asking for my interview for quite some time and that’s when I agreed to do that programme in a hotel which I usually visit. Hunger is a basic instinct of life and when I’m hungry I don’t usually care if it’s beef, chicken, or pork. The issue is not that I ate beef, but that the programme was telecast during Onam.
(This article was first published on The News Minute and has been republished with permission.)
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