Bollywood stars are human and as such prone to make mistakes. Unfortunately, being public figures and celebrities, they have to pay a heavy price for their 'public goof ups'. Actress Anushka Sharma is the latest entrant to this not-so-exclusive Bollywood club after mixing up the names of the first Minister of Education of free India, Abul Kalam Azad, and former president APJ Abdul Kalam.
Kalam died on Monday after suffering cardiac arrest while delivering a lecture at IIM-Shillong. Indians across all strata immediately took to the various social media platforms to express their grief and respects for Kalam, popularly known as India's Missile Man and 'People's President'.
Anushka also was one those, but her goof-ups ensured she started trending on Twitter for all the wrong reasons. While paying tribute to former president Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on his demise, the actress got his name wrong, not once, but twice and needed a third attempt to get it absolutely right.
The actress first spelt Kalam's name as ABJ Kalam Azad on the micro-blogging site Twitter. Her tweet read: `Very sad to hear about the passing of ABJ Kalam Azad. Loss of an inspiring visionary and a wonderful soul. May his soul RIP."
She soon realised her mistake and tried to rectify it, but still didn't spot the glaring error. She tweeted, `Very sad to hear about the passing of APJ Kalam Azad. Loss of an inspiring visionary and a wonderful soul. May his soul RIP.`
The actress then deleted her previous tweets as she finally got it right on her third attempt.
`Very sad to hear about the passing of APJ Abdul Kalam. Loss of an inspiring visionary and a wonderful soul. May his soul RIP,` Anushka tweeted.
The `Dil Dhadakne Do` actress was lambasted from all quarters on Twitter.
One user tweeted: `@AnushkaSharma 3rd time you are tweeting...I hope this time won't be deleted ..: #RIPAbdulKalam`; while another wrote: `Congrats @anushkasharma for getting it right in just 3 attempts...great achievement considering Bollywood standards`.
Actor-producer Kamaal R Khan aka KRK, known more for his controversial tweets than films, took the opportunity to also diss the actress. He tweeted, `Just read this tweet of educated intelligent actress @AnushkaSharma Hadd Ho Gayee Yar. Ashiqui Se Hi Time Nahi Milta!`
A Salman Khan 'fan' also got into the act, taking this chance to support his 'Bhai', tweeting, `There should be far greater outrage on Anushka Sharma's tweet on #KalamSir than there was on Salman Khan over Yakub.`
Luckily, she got some support from her fans, with one guy tweeting in incorrect English that it must have been the auto correct feature of her iPhone. He tweeted, `Don't worry @AnushkaSharma it's cmepleetly undrastendeble that its was a mistake by an auto correct feature of iphone.!`
Abnotehr user tweeted, "#AnushkaSharma Dont be sad, I think there are some more who made da same mistake. Even I am one of them :)"
Karuna Nundy, who is an advocate in the Supreme Court, tweeted her support also discussing the fact that people took delight in taking down talented and attractive women. She wrote, "So many delighted to call #AnushkaSharma stupid for a typo, Alia Bhatt dumb. Take down talented, attractive women = feel better about self."