Share this page!

Gaurav Sabnis Profile picture
Twitter logo
Jun 17 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Dad used the lockdown to learn Urdu from online resources. He now spends most of his free time reading Urdu literature on his iPad.

Almost everyone who hears this applauds a 70 y.o. learning a new script & expanding his vocabulary.

ALMOST everyone. 🙄

He told me of a chat...
.. With an acquaintance who heard of this & said sarcastically

"Learning Urdu? Good! Learn it, then read Quran & decode it for us Hindu people also so we can understand what "their" problem is."

My dad is a nice guy, not acerbic like me. He tried to explain the flaw in this.
Dad: Abeyaar, you think Quran was written in Urdu? The original is in Arabic. Urdu is an Indian language. The Urdu Quran is not that different from a Hindi Quran. 🤷🏽‍♂️

Sanghi Uncle: Arre Urdu Arabic is all same to us.

Dad: Urdu is an Indian language 🤦🏽‍♂️

(Nice that he tried)
It won't surprise you to know that said uncle is a white collar professional who is a WhatsApp warrior, hardcore Modi supporter, and forwards stuff like that fake NYT frontpage calling Modi India's last hope.

My dad is a conflict averse book worm who hates WhatsApp.
I'm glad dad gave pushback with facts. More people need to give pushback against this propaganda.

Recently sanghis have started referring to Bollywood as #UrduWood as in insult. Pushback should be, sure, it is Urdu heavy. So what? Urdu is an Indian language. 🇮🇳🇮🇳💪💪

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Gaurav Sabnis

Gaurav Sabnis Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @gauravsabnis

Gaurav Sabnis Profile picture
Jun 18
Putting band-aid on a fire you started instead of using a fire extinguisher.
What!!???

It's like they have never actually met someone wanting to join the military! How is offering paramilitary jobs after a concession?

If anything, it is confirmation that #Agnipath is dunzo-fication of the Indian military. A slap in the face.

Also, why is the Home Ministry jumping into what is clearly a Defense Ministry matter?
Read 4 tweets
Gaurav Sabnis Profile picture
Jun 18
"Dad and Pizza: An Epiphany"

Growing up, I thought of Dad as an unadventurous eater & very much a gharcha jevan (home food) junkie. Mom, though a no-eggs vegetarian, has always been very adventurous in terms of restaurants & cuisines. I thought I got my foodie gene from her. /1
Dad took us to restaurants. But he rarely enjoyed the food. He loved a good vadapav, misal, all Marathi and Indori street food.

But other stuff, he found meh. We'd go home & he'd eat leftover poli bhaaji and THEN look satiated.

He was okay being called a non foodie.
He eats eggs regularly. Makes the best Indian style omelets in the world. He eats some fish and poultry and mutton, but doesn't really relish it the way I do. Basically Dad was never one to suggest a "non-veg" restaurant. He preferred simple Thalis.

Very comfort zone guy.
Read 19 tweets
Gaurav Sabnis Profile picture
Jun 17
Dunzo-fication and Swiggy-fication of the Indian military, given pious sounding names like #AgnipathRecruitmentScheme and #Agniveer cos BJP thinks giving anything a Sanskrit name is the extent of its governing duties.
WhatsApp uncles repeating IT cell talking point of "you can still join army the conventional way, this is just an option" are being shamelessly dishonest.

There has been no recruitment of Jawans in the Indian army since 2020. What conventional way?
After a 2.5 year hiring freeze for a job that requires training young men for physical fitness, aggression & willingness to kill, the Indian govt announced a recruitment scheme in which 75% Jawans, even if flawless, will be fired.

And are shocked SHOCKED at violent protests.
Read 11 tweets
Gaurav Sabnis Profile picture
Jun 17
First big domino to fall.

Last semester, one of the projects for my ug mkt strat class was Cosmetics analytics using @clootrack data. And this was a very clear trend. Decline of legacy brands with euro-centric skews & SKUs with rise of diverse social media influencers & celebs.
The legacy players thought Fenty was just yet another celebrity vanity project for Rihanna (😍🥹) fans. Celebs have launched cosmetics brands and clothing labels as a side project.

But Fenty was something else altogether! A digital juggernaut in an analog arrogant world.
One of my groups analyzed data about Cover Girl and compared it to influencer driven brands. And one student nailed it.
"Cover Girl is an anachronistic brand name from an age where we wanted to look like cover girls. Today we want cover girls to look like us. 🤷🏽‍♂️"
Read 4 tweets
Gaurav Sabnis Profile picture
Jun 17
Tell me you're a casteist without telling me you're a casteist. 🙄🙄

Anyone who extols India's "cheap labor" as an advantage is celebrating the casteism based inequality we perpetuate that lets 10% elites have West-ish lives while paying sub Saharan wages to 90% labor force.
Dude seems like the kind of guy who, if he lived in 1860 USA, would say that life in the southern states like South Carolina had the advantage of "cheap labor" compared to northern states like Massachusetts.

This "Indian cheap labor is a feature" crowd is really the worst.
People be who feel proud at their kids getting crore salaries after MBA then turn around and feel proud that "my luxurious Uber from Bombay airport to Pune cost less than a 10 km taxi from JFK to Manhattan" without even a hint of irony.

Cheap labor is a bug not feature.
Read 11 tweets
Gaurav Sabnis Profile picture
Jun 16
Hehe, interesting side story here about why Brazil is the only Portuguese speaking country in LatAm. The Portuguese lost India to the English & Indonesia to the Dutch, but they managed to grab a pretty big chunk of real estate in South America that should have been Spain's!
Columbus was an Italian getting no interest in Italy cos Italy already had great trade links with the east. So he took his idea of sailing west for India to Portugal. Who correctly said dude, yes, Earth is round, but India is way farther that way than you think. Bye bye.
So he went to Spain, where the Isabella & Ferdinand, lucky couple, said yes to his absolutely batshit ridiculous plan of sailing west to reach India quicker than by the traditional route or even rounding Africa, like Portugal planned to do.

Portugal was the rational party here.
Read 15 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(