The Tamil meme nation has been on an overdrive lately, much to our delight. If Harbhajan Singh was the talk of the town since Pongal, thanks to his tweets in pure, colloquially obsolete Tamil – the kind that would make a native speaker chuckle (he was the newly anointed Super King, you see) – TMN’s meme makers have now chosen Simbu to be their vehicle. Ever since the actor’s …impassioned speech at the Kollywood-organised protest for Cauvery – in which he momentarily revealed one of the faces behind those randomly attributed quotes floating on the Internet – there have been a slew of memes that have made good use of his lines.
Before we move on, a particularly favourite Harbhajan meme (much was made of the fact that the cricketer began tweeting in Tamil well before the IPL auction):
??? pic.twitter.com/FSmxAcIRjV
— Hari Sriram (@harisriram28) March 29, 2018
Simbu’s journey towards being meme fodder began one particularly dark morning, when, after the rest of the film fraternity had registered their protest, he arrived all in black to express his views on the Cauvery issue. He seemed to begin on a rather benign note, questioning the purpose of the silent protest by his colleagues, and attributing Tamil Nadu’s ill fortunes to the demise of former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. It was all good until he tried to ascribe the idea of protesting in black to someone well known, toying with names like T Rajendar, Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan. But, unlike what has been written in other media outlets, he seemed to be deliberately fumbling for names, to drive home the point that quoting someone can be viewed as a political exercise. It was funny – and completely intended – when he settled on Abdul Kalam.
That was his last coherent thought for the day, though.
Here @firstpost, take one more quote for that article of yours. pic.twitter.com/OelHIMPF6A
— Ramesh Srivats (@rameshsrivats) July 28, 2015
Much to the delight of meme makers, the next 30 minutes were pure fun. STR’s recourse to ending the issue involved appealing to the women of Karnataka for water. He even suggested that the people in Karnataka give a symbolic glass of water to their Tamil friends on a particular day, at a scheduled hour, to voice their support.
STR then refused to talk hard politics, often resorting to aphorisms. “If a scorpion stings me, I would still protect it from harm; it’s unbecoming of a Tamizhan to kill,” he said to loud cheers.
He also did not take kindly to being interrupted.
This particular meme which features an agitated STR is captioned – “When a failed actor tries to beg director Shankar for a role in Jeans 2.”
Yet another description reads: “When the waiter says the buffet is closed.”
Courtesy: Mystic Tamil
One more, with some brilliantly synced scenes:
Meanwhile, STR has launched an initiative #UniteForHumanity which seems to involve protecting the environment. He hasn’t been quite forthcoming with the deets, though.
STR was last seen in the 2017 film Anbanavan Asaradhavan Adangadhavan, the Adhik Ravichandran directorial which featured the actor in dual roles. It was panned by the critics and the audience alike. The director, later, had attributed its failure to the fallout between STR and himself.
The actor’s upcoming movies include Mani Ratnam’s Chekka Chivandha Vaanam, which features an ensemble cast including Arvind Swami, Vijay Sethupathi, Arun Vijay, Jyothika, Aishwarya Rajesh and Aditi Rao Hydari among others.
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