{"id":5470,"date":"2016-04-27T01:46:29","date_gmt":"2016-04-26T20:16:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=5470"},"modified":"2016-04-27T01:46:29","modified_gmt":"2016-04-26T20:16:29","slug":"howdy-modi-houston-woman-stealing-dhokla-video-viral-outrage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=5470","title":{"rendered":"Howdy Dhokla! Enough with the Outrage Over the Snack-Stealing Woman at Modi\u2019s Houston Event"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

H<\/span><\/p><\/div>

\nouston, we have a problem. From the looks of it, a dhokla \u201cthief\u201d is currently on the loose, snatching delicious <\/span>Gujju delicacies<\/span><\/a> off tables and hiding them in the recesses of her bag. The woman in question is the star of the latest viral video doing the rounds, which sees her committing the dhokla larceny at a banquet table at the \u201cHowdy Modi\u201d event held in Texas over the weekend. For some reason, a guest at the same table was recording the video on their cell phone (maybe he\/she wanted some #foodporn pics for Instagram), and managed to catch her in the act.<\/span>\n\nInternet fame (or infamy) soon followed, with the woman becoming the new face of the same old \u201clol Indians can be so cheap\u201d jokes that we\u2019ve been cracking since <\/span>Krishna<\/span><\/a> acquired the reputation of stealing butter. While one end of the spectrum of reactions characterised the woman as a punchline, the other end took a moralistic view of the act, claiming that what she did was inarguably wrong and that she would escape censure because of her privilege. For a simple snack, she set off quite a storm in a… dhokla plate. While there seem to be no shortage of people ready to offer their opinion on the viral video \u2013 branding the woman as everything from eccentric to evil \u2013 there is a marked shortage of self-awareness in these armchair commentators.<\/span>\n\nLook, as a fellow dhokla lover, I can understand the woman\u2019s motivations. Not her methods \u2013 who wants dhokla grease stains inside their handbag? \u2013 but I have also visited the house of my Gujarati friends and asked their mums to pack me a box full of the good stuff. When a dhokla is tasty, you don\u2019t just let it be cleared off the table to be dumped in the bin with the other <\/span>leftovers<\/span><\/a>, you preserve it any way that you can, and this woman chose her handbag over a takeaway bag. But putting all empathy aside, I can understand the urge to make jokes. After all, this is exactly the kind of cringe-inducing behaviour that would make us double over in laughter if a character on a sitcom acted like this. <\/span>George Costanza<\/span><\/a> might be this woman\u2019s spirit animal.<\/span>\n\nBut the difference between George and our ben is that George exists on screen, solely for the purpose of providing laughs, and all his actions are predetermined by a script. Meanwhile, this woman had a moment of human weakness, and was unlucky enough to be filmed while it occurred. Yet this invasion of her privacy became an online free-for-all, as people decided to try out their rejected open mic material at her expense. Some would argue that this was fair comeuppance for her flouting of social etiquette; to me, it speaks to the voracious appetite we have for voyeurism.<\/span>\n\n

Viral videos like this one satisfy our urge for schadenfreude, giving us the opportunity to see misery heaped on others to distract from our own troubles.<\/p><\/blockquote> \n\nViral videos like this one satisfy our urge for schadenfreude, giving us the opportunity to see misery heaped on others to distract from our own troubles. It\u2019s easy to crack jokes about someone bagging dhoklas, but by turning her into the unofficial mascot for bad dinner guests, we\u2019ve dehumanised her to the extent that she\u2019ll now be known only for this one transgression. We\u2019re all guilty of acting more than a little entitled and greedy: Asking the <\/span>petrol pump<\/span><\/a> workers to clean your windshield for free while fuelling up, demanding free chakna with our beers at the bar, and yes, helping ourselves to more free food than we should at langars and bhandaras. But imagine if somebody were to film you at such a time and make you the butt of their jokes. It wouldn\u2019t be so funny then, would it?<\/span>\n\nWhile we\u2019re on the topic of transgressions, there are those who think that the dhokla theft has booked this desi a place in the seventh circle of Hell. I\u2019ve seen posts claiming that her and her <\/span>husband<\/span><\/a>\u2019s name should be made public so that \u201ctheir co-workers or neighbours can get to be extra careful around them\u201d. This kind of virtue-signalling is how imposing your own ideology onto trivial events can make a mountain out of a molehill. I would think that this person\u2019s co-workers and neighbours are already aware of her fondness for dhoklas, and possibly prepare extra just for her when she visits, but maybe I\u2019m just na\u00efve. Nevertheless, taking home a few dhoklas that were already served to you is not a crime worthy of doxxing a private individual (which, by the way, <\/span>is <\/span><\/i>a crime).<\/span>\n\nWhether it\u2019s humour or <\/span>hatred<\/span><\/a>, how we react to the saga of the stolen dhoklas says as much about us as it does about the woman. As for myself, the video just made me hungry.<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A woman was caught slipping dhoklas into her bag at the Howdy Modi event and of course, Indians on the internet are angry. But aren\u2019t we all guilty of acting more than a little entitled and greedy? Demanding free chakna with our beers and not paying the guy who cleans the car windshield at the petrol pump?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":5471,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[9299,9300,9301,9302,9303,9291,3982,2169,9304,7449,9305,2362],"class_list":["post-5470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pov","tag-dhokla-aunty","tag-dhokla-viral-video","tag-gujaratis","tag-gujjus","tag-howdy-dhokla","tag-howdy-modi","tag-indians","tag-krishna","tag-leftovers","tag-nri","tag-petrol-pump","tag-viral-video"],"yoast_head":"\nHowdy Dhokla! 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