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Shashi Tharoor praises ‘ethereal fluffiness’ of idli, Swiggy shows up at his doorstep with dish

Swiggy showed up with steaming plates of idli at Shashi Tharoor’s house after the Congress MP shared a post defending the South Indian delicacy.

Published on: Sep 29, 2025, 06:51:25 IST
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Swiggy showed up with steaming plates of idli at Shashi Tharoor’s house after the Congress MP shared a post defending the South Indian delicacy. Like all his other posts, this one too was eloquent in language and elaborate in its praise of the Indian rice cakes.

Swiggy delivered idlis to Shashi Tharoor after his post praising the South Indian delicacy. (X/@swiggy)
Swiggy delivered idlis to Shashi Tharoor after his post praising the South Indian delicacy. (X/@swiggy)

In praise of idli

In his post, Tharoor compared idli to an MF Husain painting, a Beethoven symphony, a Tagore sangeet, or a Sachin Tendulkar century. He was responding to an X user who claimed that idlis taste like “steamed regret”.

“Poor soul has clearly never had a good one. A truly great idli is a cloud, a whisper, a perfect dream of the perfectibility of human civilisation,” the Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala replied.

He did not stop there. In his post praising idli, Tharoor added: “It's a sublime creation, a delicate, weightless morsel of rice and lentil, steamed to an ethereal fluffiness that melts on the tongue.

“With the right accompaniments, it is the culinary equivalent of a Beethoven symphony, a Tagore sangeet, a Husain painting, a Tendulkar century. To call such a thing ‘regret’ is to have no soul, no palate, no appreciation for the finest achievements of South Indian culture,” he claimed.

Swiggy steps up

Food delivery giant Swiggy read Tharoor's poetic ode and decided to treat him to the region’s finest idlis.

On Sunday, Swiggy delivery agents and employees showed up with parcels of idlis at Shashi Tharoor’s doorstep. A post shared by Swiggy on X shows the parliamentarian posing with them.

Swiggy not only delivered idli to Tharoor but matched him in eloquence – albeit in Hindi.

In its X post, the food delivery platform, writing in Hindi, said that it was a matter of delight for them to serve the region’s finest idlis to Tharoor. “It is a matter of extreme delight for us that we had the opportunity to serve Shri Tharoor Ji the region's finest idli. We hope that our team has succeeded in satisfying his taste buds and that these unparalleled marvels of culinary art have brought him to a state of supreme bliss,” Swiggy wrote.

  • Sanya Jain
    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Sanya Jain

    Sanya Jain is an Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times Digital. She has nearly a decade of experience in covering offbeat stories that speak to the everyday experience - from viral videos to human interest copies that spark conversation. Her interests stretch across business, pop culture, social media trends, entertainment and global affairs. Before joining Hindustan Times, Sanya spent two years with Moneycontrol and five years with NDTV. She holds an undergraduate degree in English literature from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and a master’s in journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai. Sanya has a sharp eye for spotting emerging trends and looking for newsworthy angles to elevate viral posts into meaningful narratives. She was the first one, for example, to cover Narayana Murthy’s remark on 70-hour work weeks that sparked a national conversation. She is equally at ease writing about business leaders as about the common man, about issues of national importance and memes that amuse social media. Sanya enjoys speaking with content creators, newsmakers and entrepreneurs to transform everyday moments into engaging, slice-of-life stories that resonate with readers. When she is not working, Sanya can be found curled up with a good book. Born and raised in Lucknow, she has spent the last several years in Delhi. She is deeply interested in animal welfare and now spends a lot of her time running after her destructive orange cat.Read More

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