Twitter controversies aside, Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor is not known to commit a faux pas as his social media game is generally on point.
Among the exceptions was when he tweeted a wish for Mahavir Jayanti on Thursday. That wouldn’t have been anything out of the usual, had he not tweeted a photo of Gautam Buddha to go with it.
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) March 29, 2018
Twitter users were quick to notice this, and responded by taking a leaf right out of Tharoor’s book.
People responded to Tharoor’s tweet by exaggerating Tharoor’s erroneous tweet. For instance, one person tweeted a picture of Santa Claus, and wished ‘Happy Holi’. Another tweeted a picture of Hitler, and said, “Happy birthday Charlie Chaplin”. There was even a picture of Dexter, from the eponymous TV series about a serial killer, captioned, “celebrating World Peace Day”.
Check out some of the reactions.
Happy Diwali pic.twitter.com/hIV3p7DCI4
— Gujarati Jon Snow (@Gujju_Jon) March 29, 2018
Happy kite flying pic.twitter.com/5qZ9qVHpBp
— Chintan Shah (@chintan20) March 29, 2018
Happy Ram Navmi. pic.twitter.com/nJGpIajunq
— Royal Fussy (@Fussy_Ca) March 29, 2018
Celebrating World Peace Day pic.twitter.com/DIetB5tKgL
— Backend (@no_funintended) March 29, 2018
Happy mahveer jayanti pic.twitter.com/JqcVej5CHJ
— Squirrel_Of_Ram (@Squirrel_Soul) March 29, 2018
Here is Steve Jobs, ex CEO of Microsoft pic.twitter.com/85BL7HZMhc
— Vellaku Ennai (@VellakuE) March 29, 2018
Happy Holi!! pic.twitter.com/gu1TF4u2Sn
— Rosy (@rose_k01) March 29, 2018
Eid Mubarak pic.twitter.com/dLmovVfVxE
— (@Kunthavi5) March 29, 2018
Happy birthday Roger Federer pic.twitter.com/whJaTczwRM
— Srikanth (@srikanthbjp_) March 29, 2018
Happy New Year!!! pic.twitter.com/cBRO4v1Tm9
— Bimal Shahi (@bimalshahi) March 29, 2018
Happy Pongal
— Ram......... (@_Ra_Ram_) March 29, 2018
pic.twitter.com/OnOc10bhyl
Happy Birthday Donald Trump pic.twitter.com/aF1kehhycF
— Pratik Sakpal (@PratikSakpal97) March 29, 2018
Another user even helpfully pointed out the difference between the statues of Mahavir and Buddha.
These are the major differences which I found:
— Aditya Shukla (@Adityashukla24) March 29, 2018
1) A Mahavira statue will have SriVatsa mark on his bare chest, whereas Buddha’s chest will be covered by cloth.The body of Lord Mahavira will be not covered by cloth, showing he freed himself from all earthly desires. 1/n pic.twitter.com/J7u0M0MKDz
4)The Buddha statue will always have a hand raised in Mudra sign, whereas the Mahavira statue will have both the palms (right on left) as a Vedic Ardha- Padmasana meditative pose. 3/n
— Aditya Shukla (@Adityashukla24) March 29, 2018
Taking the trolling in his stride, Tharoor, in response, tweeted “At least, thanks to my apparent error, a lot more people are tweeting on Mahavira than they would otherwise have.”
Here's the source for my picture: https://t.co/OrNVaFsJqd
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) March 29, 2018
Authentic, accepted alternatives most welcome. At least, thanks to my apparent error, a lot more people are tweeting on Mahavira than they would otherwise have! https://t.co/vYHNgeeY22
He also pointed out how two media publications had made the same mistake of tweeting Buddha’s photo for Mahavir Jayanthi.
Taking cognisance of this, one of the media houses even deleted the erroneous tweet. To this, Tharoor replied saying, “I believe in owning up to my mistakes & not concealing the evidence of my errors. So my mistake (&the chortling that followed) is there for all to see.” (sic)
He also threw in a jibe at the Australia ball tampering scandal.
Seems @ZeeNews has deleted their erroneous image. But i believe in owning up to my mistakes & not concealing the evidence of my errors. So my mistake (&the chortling that followed) is there for all to see. Honesty (as @stevesmith49 &co have found out) is always the best policy. https://t.co/8h1pfNYN8V
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) March 29, 2018