Youth support Kerala medicos with their own Rasputin dance videos

Youth from across Kerala are posting videos supporting the two medical professionals who shared a video dancing to the tune of 'Rasputin', to counter some Sangh supporters' attempts to make it a communal issue.

Youngsters have even started a social media campaign against the hate campaign.

The Kerala government's health department had even used the dance of the medicos as the baseline for an animated campaign for Covid-19 vaccination.

A girl in traditional attire of Thiruvathira dance form of Kerala dancing to the tune of 'Rasputin' and kids dancing to the tune of the evergreen pop songs are among the series of dancing protests against the hate campaign doing rounds on social media.

Naveen Razak and Janaki Omkumar, students of the Thrissur government medical college, had made a 30-second video clip dancing to the tune of 'Rasputin'. The two were in scrubs and the video was shot in their hospital corridor. They posted the video on social media and it went viral and two students became celebrities overnight last week.

The hate campaign was triggered with the post of one Krishna Raj, said to be a Sangh Parivar supporter. Referring to the religion of the two students, he cautioned Janaki's parents that he was smelling a rat. He also made a reference to Nimisha, a Kerala girl who reportedly joined ISIS along with her husband.

Following this, a group of medicos posted similar short dance videos featuring more medicos and initiated a hashtag campaign, '#resisthate', with the caption 'if the intention is hate, the decision is to resist'.

When DH got in touch with Nimisha's mother Bindhu, she said that she had not come across the reference made about Nimisha in the hate campaign, and hence, did not want to comment.

In what could be considered as an expression of solidarity with the students, the Kerala health department brought out an animated video of two vials of Covaxin and Covishield dancing to the tune of 'Rasputin' as a campaign to promote vaccination. Kerala Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (MILMA) also featured Naveen and Janaki for their new ad.

Both Naveen and Janaki had said that they were least bothered about the hate campaign being triggered over their dance and such comments did not even deserve any reply. Both of them are also committed to take forward their interest in dance along with their medical career.