Yami Gautam, Accused Of Disrespecting Assamese Culture After Viral Video, Tweets: “My Reaction Was Self-Defence”
“As a woman, if I am uncomfortable with anyone getting too close to me,” tweeted Yami Gautam
New Delhi: Actress Yami Gautam, who inaugurated the Great Guwahati Marathon in Assam on Sunday, posted a statement on Twitter after being trolled on social media for appearing to “disrespect” Assamese culture. The 31-year-old actress found herself at the receiving end of hate and brutal comments after a video of hers from the Guwahati airport went crazy viral. In the video, originally shared by an Assamese media outlet, the actress can be seen moving away from a male fan, who came too close to her with the intention of greeting her with a gamosa (traditional Assamese scarf). After requesting the fan to stay away, Yami can be seen making her way to the car in a haste as reporters and paps surround her almost immediately.
In her tweet, the Kaabil actress said that swerving away from the fan was a natural reaction when the fan came unexpectedly close to her. “My reaction was simply self-defence. As a woman, if I am uncomfortable with anyone getting too close to me, I or any other girl has every right to express it. I didn’t intend to hurt anyone’s sentiments but it’s very important to voice out a behaviour, inappropriate in any manner,” she wrote in a tweet
Reacting to accusations of her alleged irreverence towards Assamese culture, by rejecting the gamosa from the fan, Yami tweeted this: “This is my third visit to Assam. I have always expressed my love towards Assamese culture and people. It’s insensitive to react to a single-sided story and spread hate. I am present here, in this beautiful state for an important event and shall always keep coming back. Peace and respect.”
While Twitter is flooded with tweets calling out Yami Gautam for not accepting the gamosa, a section of the Internet jumped to Yami Gautam’s defence. “There is nothing wrong in what she did. You can not just approach someone randomly,” read a tweet while another added: “I think Yami was perfectly right to reject that gamosa.”
