Peeved by offending photo, Modi lookalike to shave off beard

MP Ramachandran, from Kerala, was working in the Gulf for long, before he retired. For a long time, he has sported a beard. For a long time, too, he has also looked like Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Last week, the controversial Mumbai-based TV comedy show, All India Bakchod (AIB), spotted him waiting for a train to Bangalore at Payyannur station in North Kerala, carrying a bag on his shoulder and checking his phone: he looked exactly like Modi, and you would be excused if you thought that the PM, tired of his burdens, was taking a sabbatical, disguised as Ramachandran.

AIB flashed the unsuspecting Ramachandran's picture along with a Snapchat dog-filtered Modi picture causing trolls to hit the panic button. The offending picture was subsequently taken off.
But Ramachandran, reports the Hindustan Times, has finally decided to do away with his beard. He would shave it off next week, he was quoted as saying. The damage - such as it is - is done, it appears.
Though a fan of Modi, whom he believes is a great leader, Ramachandran has had enough of people demanding a selfie with him and setting the local social media circles on fire.
At first, it was just fun, he had thought. But increasingly he had found it an invasion of his privacy - all because he looks like the Indian Prime Minister, without his advantages.
The problem of his (false) fame began sometime after Modi became the prime minister. Naturally, it started in public places like railways stations and bus stands.
The first of the more memorable mobbing was when he was waiting for a train bound for Jammu. "A boy approached me to click a picture," the HT quotes him as saying, "and there were army personnel around and they too jostled with each other to pose for pictures with me". The selfie session delayed the departure of the train by some 20 minutes.
At first, Ramachandran used to take the attention and accolades caused by his mistaken identity sportingly. But last week, with AIB doing the needful as it were, he has had enough.
It is not as if AIB was spared. Modi fans sent thousands of angry messages saying they found the AIB-Snapchat version of the PM "unpatriotic and anti-nationalist".
When AIB finally took down the offending photograph, they were trolled for their cowardice.
In any case, the upshot is not that Modi has decided on shaving off his beard so that he doesn't look like Ramachandran; but that he has resolved to take off his hirsute accessory after fame.
Ramachandran, however, is not alone in the crime of looking like the Indian Prime Minister. Vikas Mahante from Mumbai is famous in his neighbourhood for his resemblance to Modi. There is one Abhinandan Pathak in Varanasi. And, one can be sure, in a vast country with a teeming population like India, there would be other Modi lookalikes in little lanes and by-lanes enjoying a little attention now and then.
The doppelgängers are good news for Modi. In case he ever looks for a double for security reasons - as some of the leaders do - he would be spoilt for choice.