By: Karan Thapar Published in: *The Wire* Date: May 23, 2025 Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JSFsEnhl_w *Note:* This interview is in English and the transcript is embedded in the source.
"In an interview to mark the publication of his recent collection of blogs called ‘Holy Cows and Loose Cannons: The Duffer Zone Chronicles’, Avay Shukla, who is arguably the country’s favourite blogger, says India could be becoming a nation of duffers and that we’re evolving back to the neanderthal stage. He says: 'It is clear that the Indian side of the LAC is one big duffer zone all the way to Kanyakumari.' He also says: 'Other countries evolve for the better, we have been consistently doing it for the worse, and are proud of it.' This new collection comprises some fifty essays on a variety of different subjects but in each instance the Avay Shukla brand stands out. They are about our peccadilloes, our idiosyncrasies, our prejudices, our vices, our foibles and our misdemeanours. Some of them are serious, many are satirical, several are simply great fun to read. Let me give you a taste of some of the things that have attracted Avay Shukla’s attention and his versatile pen. He is infuriated by Indians who suddenly turn against our Muslim culture and heritage. Of them he writes: 'They have suddenly discovered God and find that He can only be a Hindu. After growing up on Mughlai food, listening to ghazals and qawalis, conversing in a language that has as many Urdu words as Hindustani, swooning over Dilip Kumar, Madhubala and Waheeda Rehman, saying *wah wah* to the poems of Ghalib and Gulzar … they have now concluded that these are evil influences, they threaten our Hindu *sanskars* and girls and the whole lot must be banished.'”
