“We need more Mariyammas and Bakkiyams to control #COVID19,” goes a tweet from the Coimbatore Corporation. The image below is a screen grab from the latest Tamil movie Sarpatta Parambarai.
The top half of the screen grab shows the protagonist’s wife warning him of not stepping out of the house. The bottom half of the grab shows the protagonist’s mother chiding him for leaving the house to watch a match (boxing).
Corporation Commissioner Raja Gopal Sunkara said he created the meme.
“As the Corporation is observing the COVID-19 awareness week, I thought I should chip in and created this meme.”
Mr. Sunkara said he went back to watch the movie, searched for the right scene for about 10 minutes and then created the meme. “I did not get the idea to create such a meme while watching the movie. It was only after the contest began that I thought of the movie.”
The Corporation had been getting entries for the meme contest ever since it began observing the COVID-19 awareness week and by the end of the week, it would select a winner. The Corporation was also focussing on all the urban primary health centres in the city to check which one of those vaccinated the maximum of antenatal and postnatal women in their jurisdiction, as the civic body had given them a special mandate to vaccinate such women.