Socho kitni doori hai: 5 things we learnt from Javed Akhtar's latest Twitter war
We are not scared that he will beat us to a pulp because we believe that he believes in freedom of speech.
Javed Akhtar is an asset for Bollywood, for India — and for Twitter. He wears his heart on his sleeve, doesn’t mince his words (though he may eat them sometimes) and makes his opinions clear on social media. His tweets often make news. So, there’s nothing new to add to that.
Usually.
But his recent Twitter spat, ensuing over a tweet written by historian Ramachandra Guha, revealed quite a few new things about the famous lyricist-poet.
We bring you a few of these as the spat is still going on and has taken the form of a (thankfully bloodless) war of attrition on social media.
1. IQ matters — a lot
Clearly, the poet places a great deal of importance on IQ, i.e., intelligence quotient.
Going by the textbook definition, an 'intelligence quotient' is a score derived from a set of standardised tests, developed to measure a person’s cognitive abilities in relation to their age group.
But here, the famed poet can apparently understand immediately who is a low-IQ person, or a 'single-digit IQ person', and engage with them accordingly.
2. Ab dekho to hum paas hain, lekin socho kitni doori hai!
Like the Gully Boy (lyrics written by Divine and Javed sahab), we on Twitter are also looking for the answer to that. Movies and songs, after all, draw inspiration from real life. This song from Gully Boy once again proves that. As does this controversy.
On January 26, Ramachandra Guha tweeted this:
"I do not want India to be a country in which millions of people say 'yes' to one man. I want a strong opposition".Thus Jawaharlal Nehru, speaking in 1950, the year the Republic was founded.
— Ramachandra Guha (@Ram_Guha) January 26, 2019
Twitter being Twitter, what else can you expect, if not this response?
If this was the history then it’s better to create new history...... hope u understood mr. hypocrite..
— Gorakh nath chaubey (@Gorakh22) January 27, 2019
Suddenly, Javed Akhtar intervened and wrote:
You creep , you are not even worth a speck of dust on a shoe of a scholar like Mr Guha . How dare you be so rude . Apni auqat mein raho .
— Javed Akhtar (@Javedakhtarjadu) January 27, 2019
You creep, you are not even worth a speck of dust on a shoe of a scholar like Mr Guha. How dare you be so rude. Apni auqat mein raho.
So, no doori, no majboori, is the answer. Okay then!
3. He deletes his tweets — but not often
When there were inadvertent typos, the legendary poet deleted his tweet. Like, when instead of ‘great classical singer’, he wrote ‘great classical sinner’ about Girija Devi. Or, when by mistake, he tweeted a meme of poor taste, which apparently had a photo of Narendra Modi’s wife, he deleted it.
But despite Twitter pointing out his ‘sense of entitlement’ by his usage of words like ‘auqat’, he didn't delete those tweets.
Instead, he wore them like a badge of honour — and is still telling the world that he was not the one who started it.
4. He is not actually having a meltdown
There are a few reports (we are not going into their credibility) talking about Javed Akhtar’s Twitter ‘meltdown’.
To us, however, the recent episode proves that he is not having a ‘meltdown’. He enjoys being outrageous on Twitter. He is just taking a break between creating history via Bollywood lyrics.
5. He chooses his words well
Akhtar is a mind-blowing poet. He has poetic licence, which allows him to depart from all the usual things and imagine people as 'creep', 'cockroach', etc. All those on Twitter wondering how the celebrated lyricist can differ much from that quarrelsome, scowly uncle on Twitter — there is nothing to worry about. This is a gift.
We are not scared that he will beat us to a pulp because we believe that he believes in freedom of speech.
Bas, bol diya.