KERALA:

While the response to the film in Kerala and neighbouring Tamil Nadu has been tepid, it seems to have opened the floodgates of abusive comments, both for and against.

Academy award-winning sound designer Resul Pookutty and cartoonist E.P. Unny have inspired many tweets highlighting communal harmony in their home state of Kerala, contrasting with the hate being spewed on social media following the release of The Kerala Story.

While the response to the film in Kerala and neighbouring Tamil Nadu has been tepid, it seems to have opened the floodgates of abusive comments, both for and against.

Against this background, Unny, chief political cartoonist at The Indian Express newspaper, has tweeted one of his old sketches that depicted a temple, mosque and a church that stand side by side at Palayam in Thiruvananthapuram as an exemplar of communal amity.

By Sunday evening, Unny’s tweet, dated May 5 and posted under the hashtag #KeralaStory, had been viewed by 2.97 lakh people, shared by 561 and drawn comments from 223.

Pookutty too, on May 5, exhorted people to share stories that would fit two hashtags he had created: “Guys if you have your own story of #brotherhoodinKerala share it here under the #MyKeralaStory.”

Lok Sabha member Shashi Tharoor shared Unny’s tweet and commented: “Proud to represent Thiruvananthapuram constituency. The Palayam example is one I often cite in my speeches. Beautifully drawn by @unnycartoonist.”

The image Unny tweeted was drawn in 2000 for his travel book Spices & Souls, commissioned by DC Books and published in 2001.

“I was not reacting to the film at all because I have not seen the film. If I had seen the film, I might have done a cartoon on it,” Unny told The Telegraph on Sunday.

Unny had already, before the controversy over The Kerala Story broke, been planning to tweet the screen grab of the sketch to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Palayam church.

“I had a screen grab of this image and thought I would tweet it at some point since I had read sometime in March that this was the 150th year of the Palayam church,” he said.

“This in itself is remarkable with a temple, a church and a mosque adjoining each other in the Thiruvananthapuram landscape.”

Soon after, a storm began brewing over The Kerala Story, which controversially suggests that Malayali women are being lured into conversion and radicalisation by the Islamic State.

“That was when discussions started about this film and highly polarising comments were made around it. That was why I tagged #KeralaStory while tweeting it (the sketch),” he said.

“What I was responding to was the noise made around this film by people, many of whom had not seen it,” Unny said.

Pookutty’s tweet found immediate acceptance, with Carnatic vocalist and activist T.M. Krishna tweeting: “Singing in innumerable temples across the length and breadth of Kerala for over two decades and always having people who belong to diverse faiths sharing in the music. People from whom I learnt a lot! Will be singing Guru in Kollam tomorrow.”

“Guru” is a reference to social reformer Sree Narayana Guru, whose verses Krishna has been singing for several years.

Pookutty’s hashtag #MyKeralaStory has led to several stories about communal amity in Kerala being shared.

Shanmugavel Shankaran, a netizen, tweeted a picture of a Muslim couple who had married off their adopted Hindu daughter to a Hindu man at Kanhangad in Kasargod district.

P. Abdullah and his wife Khadeeja had adopted Rajeshwari after she was orphaned at the age of seven. The couple educated the girl and brought her up as a Hindu.

A man named Zafri tweeted: “Rightly said, Resul. There are so many stories of love to share. Recently attended the Nikah ceremony of my sister in Trivandrum. Our stay, our commuting as well as the marriage reception arrangements taken care of by the groom’s non-Muslim friends. #MyKeralaStory.”

Many tweeted a video clip of a Hindu wedding at a mosque that was recently shared by Academy award-winning composer A.R. Rahman. The video is about how the Cheruvally Muslim Jamaal Mosque in Kayamkulam, Alappuzha district, held a wedding for Anju and Sharath Sasi on January 19, 2020.

The event happened after the bride’s mother, a widow, sought help from the mosque committee for her daughter’s marriage. The committee fully sponsored the Hindu wedding, held on the premises of the mosque.

A man named Raj P. tweeted: “I looked after a child with a severe illness on a ventilator. The family couldn’t meet the expenses. Their church raised some money to help them. The neighbourhood mosque committee heard about this, collected funds from Muslim families, and helped the child. #mykeralastory.”

Many stories have been shared also about how Malayalis had cut across religious communities to help one another during the devastating floods of 2018.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph Online / Home> India / by K.M. Rakesh, Bangalore / May 08th, 2023