Republic of Ghana President Nana Akufo-Addo must be a puzzled man since he posted last on his official Facebook page on February 2.
A large group of Malayalis swarmed his page with comments in both Malayalam and English sarcastically asking for the release of P.V. Anvar, MLA, from Ghana. And the President must be wondering what the fuss is all about.
After commenting apologetically against Sachin Tendulkar on Tennis star Maria Sharapova’s page a couple of days ago, Malayali netizens proved yet again that they had few competitors and parallels in social media sarcasm and humour.
If it was Sachin Tendulkar for Sharapova, it was P.V. Anvar for Mr. Akufo-Addo. Mr. Anvar has been away for the past several weeks, and there were rumours that he was detained in Ghana, the West African country he visited in connection with his business.
Soon after Ghana President’s February 2 post on the ‘Composition of the Council of State’, hundreds of Malayalis began commenting about Mr. Anvar in Malayalam and English. The post got 305 shares and 3,400 comments till Saturday evening.
Funny turns
A comment by Fazal Kavot read: “Mr. Nana Addo, kindly send back our great rainfall observer, Mr. and Dr. Anwar, MLA, to our nation. He is the inventor of ‘Japanese Clouds’. The clouds of Japanese sky bring to India State Kerala and it falls on Kerala as rain and we get the drinking water.”
Najad Palathingal commented: “Our scientist from Kerala has been missing for a few days. We request you to find him as soon aspossible.” Another commenter, Sabith, went on to give a veiled threat to the President: “If he [P.V. Anvar] is not released soon, we are ready to organise a dharna in front of the Ghana Secretariat. As a first step, the Ghananian President’s image will be burned in all cities of Kerala. Please don’t underestimate the power of Kerala people.”
The Malayali troll on Akufo-Addo’s page took various funny turns that only those who understand Malayalam well would be able to decipher.
But Mr. Anvar responded to the trolls in a jovial manner. Borrowing a Rajanikath dialogue from Tamil movie Basha, Mr. Anvar trolled back: “I will come late, but I will be the latest.”
