A flirty wink of an 18-year-old Indian actress in a music video with more than 35 million Youtube hits has turned her into an international celebrity overnight, becoming the highest-searched google icon in the country replacing a former porn actress of Canadian origin, and also triggering a court case against her ‘for hurting religious sentiments’.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed criminal action by Telangana and Maharashtra authorities against actress, Priya Prakash Varrier, and restrained other states from taking action based on song “Manikya Malaraya Poovi…” Muslim activists filed the case against the ‘wink actress’ Priya and the film team of Oru Adaar Love and its director Omar Lulu. The video also features a girl dressed in a hijab though she has not attracted much attention.
The activists alleged that the song was “offensive and violated the religious sentiment of a particular community” referring to the use of the melody as background music in the scene as it is a traditional Muslim song from the Malabar region of Kerala celebrating the love between Prophet Mohammed and his first wife Khadija.
Priya told the court that the song, which went viral online, has been in existence for the last 40 years. Her lawyer told the court that there has been no case filed against her in Kerala where the film is being made, though Muslims comprises of more than 25 per cent of the population of the state.
The shooting of the film was held up for re-writing the script to give Priya more prominence in the wake of her massive fan following on social media. It will commence in the first week of March at Kochi, the director said, adding that only 20 per cent of the shooting had been completed. Initially, Priya was hired to play a minor role which she did well and the producers have decided to reschedule offering her a much bigger role after she became an accidental internet sensation.
Priya has been searched way more than Sunny Leone, who is known to perpetually trend on the search engine. Sunny’s transformation into delectable eye candy is understandable owing to her physical assets and lustful antics but what does Priya offer? She has only her expressive face, cute curvy lips, millennial bravado and a coy wink!
She already has three million (1.3 million on a single day) followers on Instagram.
On the Valentine’s Day she received thousands of date requests from within the country as well as Pakistan, a majority Muslim country, and she is popular as far as Egypt. The 18-year-old is a first year B.Com student.
Veteran Bollywood actor Rishi Kapoor is impressed by the ‘expressive’ and ‘innocent’ appearance of Priya and predicts a bright future for her in films.
When contacted by media, Priya’s mother Preetha says her daughter had done bit of modelling and she is not the one who put her pictures on the internet. “They are all fake accounts,” Preetha says. “These pictures have been put up by photographers who took these images. We’d not taken these pictures from them. The ones she’s put up are likely to be selfies with friends.”
Reacting to the craze that Priya has become an overnight celebrity, Preetha says, “It is very difficult. But what can we do? We can’t make anyone hate us by objecting. It will be seen differently.”
