The Muskurao girl, Nayab Midha: The idea came when I lost my new shoes
The chatty 26-year-old Nayab Midha gets talking about her now viral piece, Muskurao, which has left people smiling as they watch it.
Muskurao. This one word has been the talk of social media for days now. A piece delivered by a chatty 26-year-old, Delhi-based Nayab Midha, the clip about smiling in the toughest of situations went viral, and currently holds more than a million views on her Insta account.
The idea for it came while she was on a Vietnam trip. “This poetry is me as a human being- voh hote hain highly irritating, highly optimistic log, kuchh bhi ho jaaye they find a reason ‘theek hi hoga’. I was very confused, I had to write something for a brand I was engaged by, and my show had to happen right after me coming back to India. There was this pair of shoes I had stored carefully for months, to wear on this trip, and I lost them! I was like ‘isme kuchh achha hi hoga’, and that’s when I realised I have to write just that!,” she laughs.
She wrote it on April 11, and performed it in front of an audience on the 16th. At which point did she realise it had caught on? Midha recalls, “I woke up two days back, and I had tonnes of messages from various WhatsApp groups. I had a call from the brand, they said ‘people have cropped our logo and circulated the video’... that’s when i realised it had gone places! I was sent screenshots by friends.”
Midha is currently pursuing poetry and performing her pieces live, full time. However, her original dream was to become a mathematician, while her father wished she would become a doctor. She also always had a keen interest in poetry, and won several prizes for it. “I also went to Kota for a year, that was another hell. I also didn’t just pursue this half heartedly, I worked at Infosys for two years until I was sure I could be a poet full time and rum my house. My father was extremely supportive, he was the one who told me to leave my job ‘you go and do it, I will pay you the salary for it’,” she smiles.
Born in a Punjabi family, in Rajasthan, and having an Urdu names, Midha is amused by the queries she gets for her names now. “Actors like Mouni Roy shared my video on their social media accounts. There have been so many queries I have had to deal with, some people think I am a Muslim because of my name, they think my Urdu is so good because I come from a Muslim family, some think my name is Midha!. Hum toh ghar pe mostly Punjabi mein baat karte hain,” she laughs.
