Amidst all the COVID-19 and the 21-day lockdown chaos, film journalist Sreedhar Pillai tweeted, “In states in #India with complete lockdown, the administration including police is finding it very difficult to implement it. The people on the streets & vehicular traffic ( shown on channels) is crazy! Unless people themselves stay at home , it is going to be a nightmare!”
To which the actress responded, “I still don’t understand why people are finding it so difficult to stay at home!! JUST STAY AT HOME!”
Many of her followers found this response of hers untrue. While a few talked about the struggle of a daily wage worker and how they need to earn to buy food for their families. Some even talked about the situation of the downtrodden. Unfortunately, some of these comments got quite abusive. One said, “Adiye kunthaani soru neeya poduva.”
This comment irked many others to leave more abusive comments in the thread. Manjima responded to this comment saying, “And then we have people like this! I usually don’t reply to these kinda tweets but this is what I get for asking people to stay at home. If you thinks it’s easy for anybody to stay at home without going for work you are wrong bro! Money doesn’t fall from the sky for us!”
To this, another fan responded, “Hi Manjima. Some people have to go outside to sell things for their daily food. Not everybody are blessed with monthly salaries. So instead of asking people to stay home, give them some sort of relief. Req govt to help the needy. FYI There are 18 lakh people without home in india.”
To this she said, “I completely understand that. And I am pretty sure our govt knows it too. We need to give them sometime to figure all that out. By stepping out they are risking their lives too.”
This is true though, those depending on daily wages for the family to run or those without homes are most affected by a lockdown like this. The comments may have been offensive and inappropriate but really, what about these people without a food and a home or an awareness about this?
