Narayanan Mohan was too angry to care anymore about anything. He was furious with the government, the NRC, the CAA and people from his community who decided to ostracise him for protesting. This graphic designer was one of the participants at the people's long march against CAA and NRC in Kochi.
No one would have NOT noticed him. His attire and makeup definitely sought attention. Clad in a maroon angavastram, he sported a red Swastik on his forehead. A picture of a hand painted in red covers almost his entire face. The middle finger of that hand is raised along Narayanan's nose.
Incidentally, what was painted on his face ended up being his calling card, "The middle finger that you see on my face is my response to the people from my community, to the government, the fascist regime, the CAA and the NRC," he says. The paint on his face was still wet. "I got it painted just now. A friend did it upon my insistence," he says. "We're heading towards Fascism. The government is going against the Constitution. Only those who know humanity will understand that," he says.
Hundreds of people had marched against the NRC and the CAA from the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium to the Cochin Shipyard.
Wait. Ostracised? "I am an Udupi Brahmin," says Narayanan. "Many people from my community, unlike me, do not understand Fascism or what NRC and CAA stand for. I've had a lot of debates about this with them and was kicked out from a lot of groups," he says. This he says, was what prompted him to wear an angavastram, something that brahmins usually wear, to the protest. "Our Prime Minister can identify people by their clothes. This was another reason behind me wearing this," he concludes.
