Please leave common sense behind at the login stage and prepare to be confused. Greatly.
There’s a new Twitter handle doing the rounds which will make you question your general knowledge. How? By tweeting pictures of Indian celebrities with hilarious descriptions. Best part? It’s done in such a serious tone that you wouldn’t dare question the legitimacy of the captions unless you happen to recognise the celebrities in the tweets (which we are hoping you will!)
Vaibhav Vishal, the guy with the two first names, is the creator of the handle. He even has a disclaimer pinned to the top of the handle’s Twitter feed:
Since we may or may not be an intolerant nation. pic.twitter.com/dYE48n7KUg
— Real Indian History (@realhistories) February 9, 2016
Vishal is not taking any chances… We don’t blame him!
We had a quick chat with him where we asked him about his captions. He decided to opt out of the “Wikipedia-whetted sociologically-significant metaphysically-moronic answers” and give us the real deal.
Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot about histories being extrapolated, histories being revisited, Left-inspired history being examined by the Rightists. So I just wanted to do a take on these re-interpretations. I have had some fun with my Doing Things Tumblrs (Pratibha Patil Doing Things, Anna Hazare Doing Things, Behen Mayawati Doing Things, to name a few), and I thought this was a logical next step, completely demolishing what was visible with my own take.
Here are our favourite gems from his ever-growing collection:
Choreographer duo Bosco-Caesar with their Runners Up trophies at the World Dance Championship, Dhaka (1978) pic.twitter.com/zEyMGiVjIE
— Real Indian History (@realhistories) February 7, 2016
Baba Ramdev with Karunanidhi and Nandan Nilekani (1973) pic.twitter.com/zFDyHv40kA
— Real Indian History (@realhistories) February 7, 2016
Classfellows Jyotiraditya Scindia and Omar Abdullah in a still from a play performed at Mayo College Ajmer (1981) pic.twitter.com/1O1PChOCKj
— Real Indian History (@realhistories) February 7, 2016
Rajkumar Hirani and Sanjay Dutt at the success party of Munnabhai MBBS (2003) pic.twitter.com/efEIyIbkfX
— Real Indian History (@realhistories) February 9, 2016
When I did Anna Hazare Doing Things, I had some people threatening me on Facebook. This (@RealHistories) has been easy going so far. I suspect half the world has not been able to understand ho kya reha hai. Matlab, they know I am taking somebody’s ass, but I don’t think they are gathering how and why.
Here’s one of Anna Hazare with someone who suspiciously looks a lot like Che Guevara. But @RealHistories disagrees!
Anna Hazare felicitating actor Chandrachur Singh during the shoot of Gulzar’s Maachis in Srinagar (1993) pic.twitter.com/tQmVOKy3mw
— Real Indian History (@realhistories) February 7, 2016
Here’s the kind of response he currently receives:
@i5achin Haha. So even you could not recognise Anupam Kher with make-up, right?
— Real Indian History (@realhistories) February 10, 2016
I don’t even… Jai Hind! pic.twitter.com/1QsdN2MgxZ
— Real Indian History (@realhistories) February 9, 2016
Not everyone is pleased with his take on Indian history:
@_sabanaqvi You are getting feminism and Savarna humor in this!? Next you would castigate me for whatever happened to Sita and Kunti, eh?
— Real Indian History (@realhistories) February 10, 2016
But Vishal is undeterred. And he is NOT letting anyone get away with calling it a parody handle, either:
@sabeaux Why would you say something so preposterous? From what angle does this account look like a parody handle to you? This is sad.
— Real Indian History (@realhistories) February 9, 2016
“History would be kind to me, for I intend to write it,” said Winston Churchill. I am a fanboy. Of not the man, but the quote.
History does need to be re-imagined. Such a re-imagining was, perhaps, not what one had in mind… But who cares?! This guys is funny and we can’t help but love his random captions! May his tribe increase!