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.
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.
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.

