There is now a resounding reply to the insults of being from a ‘village’, and it is: “everyone is from the village, Shanaya. You think your ancestors were born in Bandra, next to bougie cafe, eating avocado toast?”, delivered in the perfect fast-paced, angry monotone of the original reel.
The line, originally by creator Divyanshi Chauhan, is currently doing laps of Instagram, with everyone and their grandmother recreating the video’s stern expression and sudden accent change. There is no way Shanaya is getting away with her classist attacks this time.
The Viral Spiral is the humble avocado toast, finally being put in its place by an entire country. Put that accent away.
The meme has spawned a whole menu.
“Me watching bro ask the shopkeeper for avocado toast with poached eggs,” reads the text on a photo of a perplexed donkey, with a helpful note: “We’re at Guru Sandwich Point in Ulsoor”.
“Extra guac anna,” the caption helpfully adds.
Somewhere in Bengaluru, a shopkeeper is learning a new fear: guacamole. Shanaya from Bandra still has no idea why he looks confused.
Another reel shows someone making an avocado toast with a bright yellow text overlay that reads, “Bahaar ka 500 wala avocado toast ghar pe 2,000 mein bana liya, (the Rs-500 cafe avocado toast, recreated at home for Rs 2,000).” Cooking at home to save money is a time-honoured strategy. This is a different strategy, I am not sure how they managed to get there.
The comments were all busy trying to unsuccessfully figure out the arithmetic.
“Aur taste bhi vaissa nahi aaya (and it did not even taste as good),” someone chimed.
Then a man asks, “Kya aapko sach mein avocado toast nashte mein nahi milte hai? (Do you really not get avocado toast for breakfast?),” holding up his own plate of scrumptious-looking breakfast with toasts and eggs. “Toh thu hai s***e gareeb tere pe, tu gareeb hai gareeb. (then shame on you, you’re poor, just plain poor.)”
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Taste doesn’t matter
Okay firstly, what happened to being subtle? There is now only one way to prove you have any substantial income, and it is by eating avocado toast for breakfast. The taste simply does not matter.
Commenters with empty pockets have replied with photos of stitched Rs 10 notes, and their own breakfasts (plain rice with chocolate gems).
It works because the avocado has become the iPhone of fruits. You save for it, you photograph it before you eat it, a friend who has one is assumed to have come from big money, and your mother still asks what exactly is so special about it. It sits in the fruit aisle like a small green dare.
The West got there first, with a different insult. In 2017, Australian property tycoon Tim Gurner said that when he was buying his first home, he wasn’t spending $19 on smashed avocado and $4 on four coffees each. The avocado toast became the shorthand for millennial bourgeois frivolity.
In India, the same dish carried the opposite charge. It isn’t a sign you’re wasting money. It’s a sign you have it. It conveys where you’re from, or where you’d like people to think you’re from (next to a bougie cafe in Bandra).
I remember when a family friend once sent us avocado toast, and my father dearest liked it so much that he began compulsively ordering sourdough and avocados, every single day, for weeks. The man who grew up on aloo parathaa and loads of makhan now finds joy in a mostly bland fruit.
I do not get the hype, though. My fitness era will arrive in 2027 now. For the time being, let me enjoy my chole bhature.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)