KUALA LUMPUR: Longtime journalist Suganthi Suparmaniam found herself on the wrong end of the news today when a shot of her wielding a parang was turned into a meme campaigning for an alcohol-free Deepavali.
The innocent shot of Suganthi posing with the parang that was taken at her ancestral village at Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, some years back was believed to have been fished out from her Facebook account.
And the shot, splashed with green caption “No Alcohol for Deepavali”, is now trending on social media.
Suganthi said her jaw dropped when former colleague L. Manimaran sent her the meme on WhatsApp together with a voice note asking her whether it was "legit".
Since then her phone has been flooded with the forwards and people asking what’s her issue with alcohol.
“I am compelled to come out and tell everyone that I have nothing against alcohol. I also don’t really have an issue with the meme or the campaign.
"But the person should have asked me for my permission,” she told the New Straits Times.
Some digging by the former NST journalist revealed that the meme first surfaced under a Facebook thread under a post where Suganthi’s maiden book, The Story of Bentong Kali, Crime And Society in 90s Kuala Lumpur was featured.
The biography of notorious 90s gangster P. Kalimuthu was Suganthi’s maiden foray into book writing.
MIC vice president Datuk T. Mohan said there seemed to be a resurgence of campaign for an alcohol-free Deepavali.
He said there was many such memes campaigning for a ‘dry’ Deepavali this year.
“I thought, I spotted Suganthi in one and was tickled by it. But using one’s picture without their permission is wrong,” said Mohan.
In 2015, Gabungan Unity (United Indian Teams of Youth) registered a social media campaign for an alcohol-free Deepavali.