Recently the hashtag #Pray_for_Neasamani requested people on social media to pray for someone called Neasamani and quickly gathered traction and by Wednesday night, it was among the top trends in the world. Rest of india asked and Neasamani is nothing short of an icon in Tamil popular culture, where contractor Neasamani is a character played by comedian Vadivelu in the Tamil film Friends in 2001.
Furthermore this film, a remake of a Malayalam film by the same name, had Vijay, Suriya, devayani and others in the star cast. Meanwhile an overenthusiastic Vadivelu fan was quick to connect the hammer with a scene from Friends, in which Contractor Neasamani ends up with an injury because one of his inept assistants (Ramesh Kanna) drops a hammer on his head after failing to follow the simplest of instructions and news editors and journalists also jumped into Neasamani frenzy.
Moreover when one Twitter user
threatened to boycott elections if politicians don’t voice their support to
Neasamani, DMK MLA TRB Rajaa quipped, “I am going to tonsure my head at 10 am.”
Rajaa said that he’d perform several other rituals for Neasamani's recovery. Even
though comedian Vadivelu hasn’t been active in films of late, his old films
have made such a deep impression in the minds of the Tamil audience that most
of his dialogues have turned into memes.
