How Karun Nair trashed trolls and rocked Chepauk

"Nair apa tea podava vandaru" (Has Nair come to prepare only tea?) "As expected, NAIR is comfortable at TEA" "Drinks boy's message from team to Karun Nair - Thambi, tea innum varale!" (Brother, tea hasn't come yet)
Ever since he was drafted into the Indian Test team Indian batsman Karun Nair had been a victim of Nair-chai-shop jokes in TN. He was relentlessly badgered on social media with memes and tweets mocking at his below par performance.But, Karun's feat of scoring a triple hundred in the recent Test cricket between India and England at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk has silenced trolls and turned memes into cheers.
The trolls had turned particularly caustic after his failure in his first two innings in Test cricket when he scored 4 and 13. But, more than anyone else, the trolls "disappointed and hurt" B Shivananda, Karun's coach for the past 15 years and someone who has seen him struggle through the years. "The trolls hurt me. It showed the mindset of people. I know Karun for more than 15 years and remember the circumstances under which he came and joined my academy. He has worked terribly hard to be in the position where he is now," he says.
A premature baby, Karun had weak lungs as a child. As doctors advised him to participate in physical activities, his parents enrolled him in Shivananda's cricket academy. With Karun's health being his father Kaladharan Nair's priority, encouraging him to play for India was the last thought that crossed his mind. "But I knew Karun was destined for bigger things," Shivananda says.
When the memes on Karun, Shivanan went viral, Shivananda wanted to shield his ward from them. He carefully kept it all away from Karun and his parents."I didn't want to put pressure on him when he had a couple of failures. I thought his focus should be on scoring runs, not on what others say about him. If I had raised the topic, his morale would have gone down. It was my duty to protect him from such things," he adds.
At the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk, fans revisited the Nair-chai-shop joke as they waited for Karun to resume his innings on the fourth day of the Test match. But, when Virat Kohli declared later in the day that Karun had reached the magical three-figure mark (303*), the stadium roared with applause and Karun was given a standing ovation by the audience.
Barely a few minutes later, the memes turned in Karun's favour with meme creators appreciating the 25-year-old with the same enthusiasm with which they had bashed him. "Nair na tea kada vachukiitu, dum beedi vithukittu, cutting la tea aathi kodukaravan nu nenachaya, Nair da, Karun Nair" (Did you think Nair means a tea shop owner selling beedis? I'm Nair, Karun Nair). It was a take on Rajinikanth's punchline from the movie 'Kabali' in which he seeks to set right any doubt about his true nature.
Shivananda saw this one too and laughed. "I have come to believe that one has to be emotionless. Praise or criticism, there is no point in taking things to your heart or conveying it to your players. Karun is a mature player and knows how to handle things," he adds.