The video of India's field and track athlete Neeraj Chopra's interview with radio jockey Malishka Mendonsa is facing severe backlash from Twitterati.
Neeraj Chopra, a junior commissioned officer in the Indian Army, is the legendary athlete who created history in the recently-concluded Tokyo Olympics 2020, by becoming the first field and track athlete to win a gold medal for India. This is India's first medal in track and field in more than 100 years of history. Neeraj won the gold medal with a best throw of 87.58m in the men's javelin throw final at Olympics 2020.
The video shows RJ Malishka and her team dancing in front of Gold Medalist Neeraj on 1975 film Naya Daur's song 'Uden Jab Jab Zulfen Teri' before the start of the interview.
The video has received some overwhelming negative reactions from Twitterati with many calling the dance performance by RJ Malishka and her team as unprofessional and 'utterly embarrassing'.
"Ladiesssss..Yes I got the hard hitting, deep answers too but..Take the first 4 secs before the cam moves to the zoom call to guess who we are dancing for," wrote RJ Malishka while sharing the video.
"Utterly embarrassing. If the genders were reversed, it would be considered sexual harassment," wrote Twitter user Akancha Srivastava.
"If shameless objectification had faces this is how it would look," said author-historian Vikram Sampath.
"What if the genders were opposite in this case? Had @RedFM_Mumbai allowed that too?" asked a Twitter user.
Earlier this week, Neeraj Chopra and other athletes from India's Olympic contingent visited Prime Minister Narendra Modi's official residence to have breakfast with him. "When you threw your second attempt, you celebrated straight away, this can only come on the back of a lot of confidence." PM Modi had said while interacting with Neeraj.