It is not a new phenomenon. Mamukkoya, an actor who has made many a Malayali laugh with his antics on screen was announced ‘dead’ in messages on social media, that obviously went viral. Tired of the rumours, Mamukkoya himself came out to claim that he was hale and hearty. Though the actor did not have much to say on what he thought about the rumours, superstar Mohanlal definitely seems upset with what happened.
In a blog, Mohanlal has severely criticized people who begin and spread rumours of someone else’s death. The actor says that though Mamukkoya laughed at the rumours and consoled everyone who called to enquire about his condition, this was not a matter to laugh about.
“I was at a shooting in Ooty and someone called my family in Thiruvananthapuram and said I had died in an accident. Phones were not available then like these days. My parents went through a nightmare as they could not contact me for a while. Finally when they got through to me, my mother was so distraught that she did not even believe it was me on the phone,” the actor wrote.
Mohanlal says his parents had to hear these rumours twice more after the first instance. “I have always wondered what perverse happiness someone gets out of ‘killing’ a person who is alive,” he says.
The actor wonders what kind of a mentality such a person who spreads rumours must be having as they ‘obviously don’t care about the concerns they cause.’
Writing about ‘new media’, Mohanlal says that though new (social and messaging platforms) media has great potential, it is also like a pool that can be muddied fast. He says that to curb the tendency of ‘killing’ off people, the person who first spread the message that actor Mammukoya was dead should be brought to book.