The #MeToo movement, which has been calling out the sexual predators within the entertainment and media fraternities, had its first encounter in Kollywood, with journalist Sandhya Menon posting an anonymous account on national award-winning lyricist Vairamuthu.
Spotting the lyricist's name on the list was nothing less than a heartbreak and shock to a lot of people, which reminded us of one of the lines from his recent work, 'idhayam thaanguma?' meaning will the heart bear it.
Popular Indian playback singer Chinmayi tweeted about various instances when he misbehaved with young girls.
On 9th October, Chinmayi took to Twitter to narrate her own ordeal with the lyricist during an event in Switzerland in 2006.
While placing serious allegations against the lyricist, Chinmayi said that the organisers asked her and her mother to stay back while everyone left home and she was allegedly asked to stay with Vairamuthu in a hotel room.
"I asked why. He told me to cooperate. I refused. We demanded to be sent back to India. He said ‘You won't have a career!" she wrote on Twitter.
Check out her tweets here for more:
Once the singer shared her own experience, some Twitterati couldn't handle their rage and started questioning her. People posted old tweets of the singer sharing dias with Vairamuthu at events and asked her why she didn't speak about it earlier. Some commented that a police complaint will serve a better purpose than posting on Twitter while some had issues with the singer's tweet praising the lyricist's work earlier. One even posted a tweet by her mother thanking Vairamuthu and musician AR Rahman.
While one account posted a picture from her wedding saying, "Self Proclaimed Feminist @Chinmayi is claiming #Vairamuthu asked her for sex in 2005... When did she get married?? Lol. Your reason is not valid. #Chinmayi," another user questioned why she had to take his blessings on her wedding day.
However, the replies took an ugly turn as some of them shamed her in caste lines. People alleged that she was backed by RSS and BJP to humiliate Vairamuthu, who went under severe criticism by right-wing unit in Tamil Nadu after his controversial speech about Hindu goddess Andal at an event.
One Twitter user called it a 'caste-based accusation,' by posting the tweets of celebrities such as actor Siddharth, musician Anil Srinivasan.
But, these claims don't seem to be true as Chinmayi called out the name of Tamil Nadu Brahmin Association's head, accusing him of allegedly harassing a woman on the pretext of getting her a job.
Though Vairamuthu denied the allegations with a statement on Twitter, people haven't stopped calling out his name yet, with Chinmayi posting more accounts of people. There are some who don't know which side to take, so they decided to go with memes.
Reading the replies to the award-winning singer's tweets, there's just one question that pops up in our mind, 'why is it hard to believe the survivors? (we are strongly against calling them victims)'.
We leave it to the readers to decide if it is right to bring someone's religious identity into a powerful movement, which has finally enabled women to open up about all their nightmarish experiences.
A writer on Twitter rightly pointed out why men need to listen to the victims. It works for women too.