Shashi Tharoor may have a way with words and have people scrambling for the dictionary, but a pun that he made about the new Miss World certainly did not go down well.
After Haryana girl Manushi Chhillar was crowned as Miss World 2017 on Monday, MP Shashi Tharoor referred to as “chillar”, which translates to small change.
On Monday, Manushi said that she was not upset with Shashi Tharoor.
"A girl who has just won the world isn't going to be upset over a tongue-in-cheek remark. 'Chillar' talk is just small change - let's not forget the 'chill' within Chhillar," Manushi tweeted.
Also reacting to the tweets, Times Group MD Vineet Jain said that people needed to learn to be more tolerant towards light-hearted humour.
"I saw Shashi Tharoor's tweet regarding Manushi Chhillar. I wasn't offended even though she is a Times girl. We need to learn to be more tolerant towards light-hearted humour," he tweeted.
After Manushi’s victory, Tharoor had tweeted: "What a mistake to demonetise our currency! BJP should have realised that Indian cash dominates the globe: look, even our Chhillar has become Miss World!"
This post didn't go down too well with some social media users who pointed out there is a difference between Manushi's surname "Chhillar" and the word "chillar" – both in spelling and meaning.
Later, Tharoor took to his social media pages and asked people to chill.
"Guess the pun is the lowest form of humour, and the bilingual pun lower still! Apologies to the many who seem to have been righteously offended by a light-hearted tweet today. Certainly no offence was meant to a bright young girl whose answer I've separately praised. Please: Chill!"
Manushi, a medical student from Haryana, won the title in China, ending 17 years of drought for India at the international beauty pageant.
Manushi is the sixth Indian to win the Miss World pageant, after Priyanka Chopra brought home the crown in 2000.