Reneesha Reheem, the renowned actress and candidate in Season 5 of Bigg Boss (Malayalam), has been inviting the wrath of Muslim fanatics and pseudo-secularists after she offered Attukal Pongala on March 3. The ‘attack’ started as soon as Reneesha shared the picture of her Pongala ritual along with her statement – “My first Attukal Pongala”. She gets both brickbats and flowers. Along with the dirty comments, there are silver lines in the otherwise cloudy cyberscape. Some comments read “This is the real Kerala story”. The fundamentalist comments are the other way around. One of them wonders “You did it during the Ramadan period? Why can’t you embrace Hindutva?”
But Reneesha is bold enough to face these cyber atrocities. She told them to ‘go and sob’. Reneesha had posted her Pongala pictures and a footnote on her Instagram page. The footnote says, “My first Attukal Pongala”. It shows her in deep prayers. One picture shows her offering Pongala and another one is her picture in a rejoicing posture.
The post got massive support and praise. Several people lauded her for following the Ramadan rituals and simultaneously offering Pongala. They say, “It is the real Kerala Story”. One of them asked – “What will be the reactions of your own people?” ‘Your own people’ means Muslims.
But several others came out against her, citing Islamic religious demarcations. Some others alleged that she offered Pongala for the sake of getting chances in TV serials. Some people asked her to go and embrace Hindutva. These comments indicate the pulse of the followers on social media.
The aforementioned reactions would not demoralise Reneesha. She has given strong and precise replies to all comments. One of her replies is amazing: “Why should I bother about someone else’s likes and dislikes, bro?”
Another reply underlined religious harmony: “If somebody goes there with spotless faith, there is no harm”. “Those who post negative comments can sob and weep to the maximum possible extent”. Answering a comment about religious conversion, she said she is not interested.
Reneesha said in a video that she studied in Chinmaya Vidyalaya and had learnt Gayathri Manthra and Bhagavad Gita.
Some posts were really interesting and thought-provoking. One of them asks, “Is the ‘Real Kerala Story’ realistic only when Hindu girls wear hijab, when Hindus observe Ramadan fasting, when Ramadan (evening) breakfast is carried out in Hindu temples and when Hindus eat beef for proving their secular credentials? What is wrong if the reverse steps are taken by someone? If a Hindu actress had participated in an Islamic ritual, hundreds of people would have projected it as ‘The Real Kerala Story’ and several people, including the Chief Minister, would have shared it. Now, is it not clear that ‘The Kerala Story’ is not a mere propaganda movie?”
