Earlier this week when everyone was busy discussing effects of demonetisation and predicting either gloom or glory for the nation, author and columnist Shefali Vaidya decided to lighten the somber mood and decided to test the effects of a word on journalist Vir Sanghvi:
Want to play a fun game? Just tweet ‘Radia’ to @virsanghvi and report how quickly he blocks you!
— Shefali Vaidya (@ShefVaidya) November 15, 2016
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Soon people, who probably spent an exhausting day in a bank queue somewhere, found a way to unwind.
One just retweeted the above tweet, and…
@ShefVaidya @virsanghvi
It really works. . Just RTd your tweet and got blocked. Never ever tweeted him anything still… Ha ha. .. pic.twitter.com/gVICMYhnNo— Rajnish Sood (@Raj_200473) November 16, 2016
For those rare ones who still can’t guess what happened there, “Radia” refers to the corporate lobbyist and PR professional Niira Radia, whose telephonic conversations with many journalists were leaked back in year 2010. These journalists were heard either taking editorial “suggestions” from Radia for their columns or trading information that presumably was passed on to politicians i.e. acting as courier in the lobbying process. Some others were heard talking usual gossip about how entire system, including the judiciary, was corrupt and compromised.
The journalists featuring in these tapes were Barkha Dutt, Vir Sanghvi, MK Venu, Prabhu Chawla, and many others. While Barkha was alleged to have acted as a courier between Congress and DMK for ministerial berth lobbying, Sanghvi was heard agreeing to “dress up” his column to suit a corporate line. While Barkha didn’t claim that the tapes were edited, though she defended her conduct, Sanghvi claimed that the tapes were mischievously edited. He later sent the tapes to some private forensic lab and got a clean chit for himself.
However, many Twitterati don’t buy this clean chit, and they keep ragging poor (not literally) Sanghvi by mentioning Radia in his mentions, after which he blocks those accounts.
Like this tweet. Obviously you will be blocked when you mention that word in all caps:
Hey @virsanghvi why you not VIR enough to answer people, when asked about RADIA ????
— Baba Leopard Singhji (@Leopard212) November 15, 2016
But some people became a bit creative. They tried words that sounded similar to Niira Radia. But Sanghvi could sense what was going on:
@ThinkersPad say NERO RADIO. And he will still block ???? @Avinash_Gosavi2 @Dineshk28122609 @virsanghvi @ShefVaidya
— Nupur (@UnSubtleDesi) November 15, 2016
Even at 2 AM in the night, people were bowling and Sanghvi was blocking all their yorkers or googlies:
@UnSubtleDesi Somebody wrote ‘Rail Neer’ just to get blocked at 2 AM. Surreal! @DUdawant @ShefVaidya @dixitnamrata pic.twitter.com/3RlIOB4eFU
— Donald Chopda (@Chopdasaab) November 15, 2016
The game continued:
Hey @virsanghvi – Mira Road.
— Donald Chopda (@Chopdasaab) November 15, 2016
Some got blocked for writing Radia in ‘drunk’ language:
@ShefVaidya hidden likha hua Radia bhi sense kar leta hai instantly @virsanghvi @UnSubtleDesi pic.twitter.com/EfOtD2rjgH
— Gyan Marao (@GyanMarao) November 16, 2016
Some didn’t write anything similar sounding, in fact they praised Sanghvi, but the senior journalist knew what they were up to:
@virsanghvi यार ये क्या बात हुई?? ये तो चीटिंग है, मै नही खेलता। @ShefVaidya @UnSubtleDesi pic.twitter.com/rrEAkCN8Wa
— ल प्रसाद यादव (@Trollalu_Yadav) November 16, 2016
And this one is just too much:
@ShefVaidya I just thought of tweeting it and he blocked me. He can now read minds :)) @virsanghvi
— Ricky (@rickysinha) November 15, 2016
As it appeared, this was not for the first this ‘Radia game’ was played with Vir Sanghvi. Earlier in February this year, the same game was played, and the results were no different:
Let’s test this hypothesis. Tag Mr. Sanghvi and ask him why hes blocking ppl at the very mention of Nira Radia. Fun!https://t.co/NE8NkHw8bI
— Nupur (@UnSubtleDesi) February 16, 2016
Even OpIndia had joined the fun then, though without tagging Vir Sanghvi:
Is this true? Is Nira Radia releasing a new movie? 😉 pic.twitter.com/bpob8Ow7fA
— OpIndia.com (@OpIndia_com) February 16, 2016
It is relieving to know that this Twitter game was played again only after so many months, and that’s how it should be, not becoming a daily targeted ragging and tagging exercise.
But looks like Vir Sanghvi can escape playing this game anytime in future now. He can and should use Twitter’s latest feature that allows people to mute tweets which contain specific words. In order to aid Mr. Sanghvi, here are some other rhyming words and phrases to Niira Radia which he can include in his mute list – When Rome was burning, Radial tires, Kheera, Odiya, Barkha, and Sonam Gupta (because why the hell not).
