Saloni Gaur has understood the only problem with becoming popular: “You have to answer the same questions asked by different news channels,...
Saloni Gaur has understood the only problem with becoming popular: “You have to answer the same questions asked by different news channels,” as she complained in one Instagram post. The questions, Gaur told Scroll.in, usually are “When did you make your first video? When did you become viral? How did you get Nazma Aapi’s idea? Why play a Muslim woman?”
Here are some quick answers. The 20-year-old Delhi resident, on getting her first phone in 2017, began making funny videos for her Instagram account, when late last year, one of the characters she’d started playing called Nazma Aapi became immensely popular. The idea of commenting on the world as a Muslim middle-aged mother came from her time growing up in Western Uttar Pradesh, before coming across similar women in Old Delhi.
Wearing a headscarf, Gaur, as Nazma Aapi (aapi means elder sister in Urdu), has so far made short videos about Delhi pollution, soaring onion prices, the Citizenship Amendment Act and the ensuing protests, the violence at Jawaharlal Nehru University on January 5, and most recently, the Delhi elections and its results. In a span of two months, Gaur and her Nazma Aapi character have attracted tens of thousands of new followers to her Instagram and Twitter...
