Nidhi Dikshit
Chapter 1
It was a humid Tuesday morning in Pune, and the Dutta household was easing into its usual rhythm of post-breakfast inertia. In their modest 3BHK flat in Kothrud, Nana—Sudhir Dutta—sat cross-legged on his beige recliner, spectacles low on his nose, staring intensely at his smartphone. The television blared muted headlines in the background while the pressure cooker hissed from the kitchen. But Nana was engaged in a more critical national duty: circulating what he firmly believed was a “government scheme for Hindustan ke asli nagrik.” The image, a low-resolution JPEG full of typos and saffron borders, declared that every senior citizen would get ₹50,000 under a new patriotic pension yojana, provided they forwarded the message to at least ten people and submitted their Aadhaar number to a form link that looked suspiciously like a porn site domain. Unaware and unbothered, Nana dutifully forwarded the message to every group he was part of: “Pune Morning Walkers,” “Ex-Govt Retirees,” “Aaryavarta Warriors,” and finally—most importantly—to the battleground itself: “Dutta Parivaar.” Within seconds, the virtual tremor was felt across Maharashtra and abroad, from their cousin in London to their jobless nephew in Nagpur. A blue double tick blinked on screen as the message landed, and just like that, the war began.
“Fake news again, Nana?” Ritika’s reply came faster than a Diwali rocket. She was perched at her tiny desk in her Bandra flat, finishing a sociology article for a left-leaning online magazine when the offending forward lit up her screen. Her thumbs flew across the keyboard with surgical precision, adding a snarky AltNews link that debunked the entire pension yojana as an elaborate phishing scam. “This is literally from a hoax site. Please stop encouraging digital illiteracy,” she added, capping it off with an emoji that would haunt Nana’s dreams. That emoji—such insolence, such mockery. Nana’s nostrils flared. His fingers trembled with rage as he typed back, “Tumhare type ke log hi Bharat ko barbaad kar rahe hain.” Meanwhile, Sandeep Dutta, aka Sandy Bhaiya, working from his home office in Hinjewadi, sensed danger brewing. As a co-admin of the group, he did what he always did in times of crisis—he deleted Nana’s message “for everyone” and sent a sticker of Lord Ganesha holding a peace sign. “Guys, let’s chill. No politics in the family group,” he typed, followed by three namaste emojis and a cricket meme. But the fuse had been lit, and no Ganesha sticker could undo what had been done. Ritika screenshot the deleted message and reposted it with a caption: “Deleting messages doesn’t erase ignorance, Sandy Bhaiya.” Somewhere in the background, Pushpa Dutta clutched her tea cup and sighed, her blood pressure already tingling.
Kamala Nani sent a seven-minute-long voice note that began with “Main kuch nahi kehna chahti hoon” and then proceeded to lecture everyone about the values of sanskaar and WhatsApp manners. Rukhsar Aunty, the group’s silent observer, privately messaged Pushpa with a concerned, “Ye kya ho raha hai group mein?” Meanwhile, Tanay, the nineteen-year-old cousin from Nashik, who only checked the group when bored during online classes, finally chimed in. “This is better than Bigg Boss,” he typed gleefully, attaching a meme of two cats fighting labelled “Nana” and “Ritika.” The group erupted. Nana threatened to leave the group. Ritika dared him. Sandy tried to change the topic to last night’s IPL match. Pushpa begged everyone to behave, sending crying emojis and voice notes in between trying to boil dal. But what no one noticed was that in the chaos, Nana had tried to make himself sole group admin again—only to find that Ritika had already beat him to it last month after the last scuffle over vaccine memes. That’s when it hit them: this wasn’t just about a fake scheme. It was about power. Control. Respect. The admin crown. And as evening fell on the Dutta apartment and mobile screens across cities lit up with accusations, emojis, and gifs, a line was drawn in virtual sand. Team Bhakt Nana vs. Team Woke Niece. And the battle had only just begun.
Chapter 2
By Wednesday morning, the “Dutta Parivaar” WhatsApp group had transformed from a platform for birthday wishes and misplaced recipe forwards into a simmering battlefield of digital dominance. While Pune’s monsoon clouds gathered quietly outside the window, thunder already rolled across the family chat. Nana, still seething from the previous day’s insubordination, had woken up with renewed purpose. After his customary “Good Morning Jai Hind” post went ignored by most and left on seen by Ritika, he declared in bold all-caps: “THIS GROUP IS BECOMING A NUISANCE. I AM LEAVING IF THINGS DON’T IMPROVE.” He followed it with a pixelated picture of Bharat Mata holding a flag, for dramatic effect. Pushpa, fearing another migraine episode, tried to intervene with a plate of hot poha and a placating “Ignore karo na, Baba,” but Nana was already pacing in his chappals, voice rising in decibels. “Us ladki ko kisne banaya admin? Mujhe toh kisi ne poocha hi nahi!” he barked, as if the integrity of the Indian Constitution itself had been violated. Meanwhile, in Mumbai, Ritika adjusted her round glasses, took a sip of black coffee, and typed: “You don’t ask to be an admin, Nana. You earn it.” That emoji—again! Nana nearly dropped his phone in fury. Somewhere, Sandeep’s Samsung pinged with the alert that Nana had just tried to remove Ritika from the group but failed, triggering a new wave of embarrassment. Ritika had changed the group’s settings—only admins could modify the admin list now. It was a silent coup, and the old guard had been outplayed.
The next phase of the battle began not with words, but with weaponized multimedia. Nana, not one to go down without a fight, began flooding the group with patriotic poetry in JPEG format—verses praising unsung warriors, images of farmers bowing before the flag, and links to obscure YouTube channels with names like “Real Bharat Truths.” One particularly aggressive message claimed that UNESCO had declared India’s national anthem as the best in the world again—an old hoax Nana had forwarded multiple times over the years, now polished and recycled with a fresh filter. Ritika, determined not to let misinformation slide, responded systematically: “UNESCO never does this. Please stop this nonsense. Here’s the official website link.” But this time, others began reacting. Rukhsar Aunty, silent until now, liked Nana’s post with a thumbs-up emoji—her first emoji in months. Sandy Bhaiya, sensing the growing division, tried humour: “Ok but can UNESCO declare group muting as a human right?”—no one laughed. Even Nani, who had earlier preached restraint, posted a cryptic quote image of a blooming lotus with the words: “In the time of chaos, silence is wisdom.” Ritika screenshot that too and sent it to Tanay with the caption: “Even Nani’s gone full cryptic Sanghi.” Tanay, ever the troll, laughed and sent a meme of Thanos snapping his fingers with the label: “Ritika removing fake news forwards one cousin at a time.” Back in the Kothrud flat, Pushpa sat clutching her forehead while Nana, now squinting suspiciously at every family member in real life, muttered to himself about “digital gaddars.” The chat’s green ticks multiplied faster than Pushpa’s blood pressure could stabilize.
By evening, things had escalated into a full-blown Cold War. Both factions began rallying support. Nana called up his elder brother in Nashik, who hadn’t typed in the group since 2017 but was swiftly reminded that “Ritika ne group pe desh ke viruddh likha hai.” Meanwhile, Ritika DM’d her cousin Isha in Bengaluru, forwarding screenshots and writing: “Are you seeing this fascist meltdown? Come help me fact-bomb him into 2025.” Soon, Isha rejoined the group with a dramatic “Hi guys, long time!” and dropped a detailed thread about misinformation and the rise of digital propaganda, ending with a mic-drop GIF. This was war strategy, well-executed. The group now had subtext, subfactions, and suspicion. Sandy Bhaiya had to mute the chat to avoid missing deadlines. Pushpa had to hide the phone from Nana during meals. The apartment echoed with silence, save for the occasional buzz of new messages, each one a landmine. In a last-ditch move before bedtime, Nana posted a black-and-white image of Netaji Bose with the caption: “What would he say if he saw the youth today?” Ritika immediately replied, “Probably: ‘Please verify before forwarding. Yours, Netaji.’” That night, neither side slept peacefully. While monsoon rain finally arrived in Pune, cooling the city’s streets, the Dutta family WhatsApp group remained ablaze. And somewhere in the digital dust, control over group admin settings now symbolized something deeper—legacy, loyalty, and the illusion of familial unity.
Chapter 3
Thursday dawned with a strange silence on the “Dutta Parivaar” WhatsApp group, the kind that arrives just before a storm or after a particularly volatile one. Pushpa Dutta, cautiously optimistic, took this rare lull as a sign that perhaps, just perhaps, things had cooled down. She quickly posted a picture of freshly made upma with a cheerful caption: “Breakfast ready! Homemade and healthy”—but received no response, not even a courtesy “Nice” from Rukhsar Aunty or a fire emoji from Sandy Bhaiya. Ritika, usually prompt to add a snarky comment about carbs, was suspiciously silent. On the other end of the living room, Nana sat with his lips tightly pursed, phone in hand but thumb unmoving, as if waiting for a sign from a higher power—or maybe a breaking WhatsApp regulation that would return full admin authority to the elders. He had spent the previous night watching YouTube tutorials on “How to take back admin rights without losing face” and had even tried Googling if one could file a police complaint for WhatsApp disrespect. Meanwhile, Nani had begun her own campaign of quiet resistance. At precisely 9:00 a.m., she posted a 4-minute bhajan video sung by a child with questionable pitch, followed by a voice note saying: “Bhagwan ke naam se din shuru karo. Na ki jhagde se.” Ritika read it and smirked. “Passive-aggression dressed in spiritualism,” she whispered to herself. She let it sit for a while before replying, “Totally agree, Nani. That’s why we should stop spreading lies in God’s name too”—a response that left the group hanging once again between enlightenment and eruption.
But the battle lines were redrawn when Rukhsar Aunty, usually the Switzerland of the group, dropped a message that was polite but loaded: “Some of us feel the group is becoming very negative lately. Maybe it’s time to create a new one just for important updates?” The implications of this were nuclear. A new group? Was this a veiled suggestion to exile the current one? Was she implying Nana had made it toxic? Or that Ritika’s fact-checking was killing the vibe? Nana saw red. His response came in a series of short, angry bursts: “Why should WE leave?” / “This group was created by me.” / “We did not divide the family.” Sandeep, who had just returned from a stressful client call, tried his usual middle-path diplomacy: “Maybe let’s just change the group settings so only admins can post?” which triggered Ritika to reply, “Wow. Silencing dissent now? This is how fascism begins.” Before things spiraled further, Tanay jumped in with a perfectly timed meme: two dogs barking angrily through a fence labeled “WhatsApp Chat” and then suddenly quiet when face-to-face, labeled “Family Functions.” It got five laughing emojis and a lone from Isha, but Nana replied with a single word: “Shameful.” That night, Nana summoned Sandy for a secret offline meeting on the building terrace. “Beta, ye ladki log group chala rahe hain. Ye toh Anarchy hai,” he whispered, eyes scanning the shadows as if Ritika had planted a drone. “We must take back admin rights. Family honour ka sawaal hai.” Sandy, caught between generations, merely nodded, wondering why he couldn’t just convert the group into a Telegram channel and disappear.
Meanwhile, Ritika had devised her own plan of defense. She began building a coalition. She created a private group called “Cousin Reboot” and added Isha, Tanay, and eventually even her skeptical younger brother Ankit, whom she bribed with Swiggy coupons. The idea was to create a parallel structure—one that was immune to Nana’s forwards, Nani’s guilt, and Rukhsar Aunty’s soft surveillance. In this new digital republic, memes were sacred, facts were law, and every forwarded claim was held to scrutiny. But before she could fully implement her utopia, news reached her via a panicked voice note from Pushpa: “Beta, Nana ne apne phone se naye group banaya hai—‘Dutta Sanskaar Bhavan.’ Sabko add kar rahe hain. Mujhe bhi zabardasti kiya.” Ritika blinked. He had created a rival WhatsApp group? With emojis in the name? This wasn’t just a digital war—it was now a cultural coup. Within the hour, members began receiving dual notifications. Half the family was now in both groups, unsure where to wish birthdays or forward Diwali greetings. The schism was complete. “It’s like the East and West Duttas now,” joked Tanay in the Cousin Reboot chat. But Ritika wasn’t laughing. She stared at the message request from “Dutta Sanskaar Bhavan” and made a decision. She wouldn’t join. Not yet. Let the battle play out. After all, in war, patience is a strategy too.
Chapter 4
By Friday morning, the Dutta family was living in parallel universes—both painfully connected and irreparably divided. The original WhatsApp group “Dutta Parivaar” now resembled a ghost town with only Tanay occasionally dropping cryptic memes, while Pushpa sent her daily photos of food with decreasing optimism. On the other side, “Dutta Sanskaar Bhavan” was bustling with chaotic energy. Here, Nana had finally achieved what he saw as digital redemption—absolute control. Everyone, except Ritika and her known allies, had been added. Sandeep was declared co-admin with a dramatic message: “Sandeep is my general in this dharm-yudh.” Rukhsar Aunty instantly sent a string of folded-hand emojis and a tulsi plant photo as a gesture of alliance. Kamala Nani, meanwhile, had found her new turf ideal for her favorite kind of communication—uninterrupted spiritual broadcasts. That day alone, she had posted three bhajan links, one “cure your joint pain with ginger” video, and a quote image that read: “The tree doesn’t compete with the flower. It just blooms.”—a philosophical nudge at Ritika’s absence. Meanwhile, Sandy tried to maintain neutrality by occasionally posting cricket updates and weather news, but it was clear he had accepted the monarchy. This new group was a safe space—for outdated opinions, mythological reimaginings of world politics, and half-baked facts about turmeric curing depression. Here, Nana ruled, and no one dared type a fact-check link again.
But Ritika wasn’t sulking in silence. In fact, her response was dangerously strategic. The “Cousin Reboot” group had grown into a full-fledged committee with bylaws and defined roles. Isha handled “Outreach & Meme Strategy,” Tanay curated daily “Nana Fact Busters,” and Ankit tracked misinformation trends using Excel sheets Ritika had forcefully taught him to create. They had decided not to engage with the rival group but to operate independently—satirical posts, critical thinking infographics, even a “Forward Responsibly” digital poster campaign. Every move was measured, intentional. Ritika even launched a weekly digital newsletter for cousins titled “The Dutta Disruptor” containing myth-debunking, family news highlights, and a rotating segment called “Things Nana Believes That Aren’t Real.” Meanwhile, she refused to acknowledge the Sanskaar Bhavan group at all—declaring in the newsletter’s preface: “When institutions of misinformation emerge, sometimes the most radical act is not participation.” Her cousins roared with laughter, but Sandeep, who had secretly joined the Cousin Reboot group on silent mode, broke into a nervous sweat. He now belonged to both kingdoms, an unwilling double agent with a deeply confused notification panel. That evening, when Pushpa confronted him at dinner—“Tumne dekha na? Nana ne mujhse kaha Ritika anti-sanskaari ho gayi hai!”—he could only mumble, “Chawal garam hai?” while sipping buttermilk like it was anesthesia.
The crisis reached new absurdity when a minor family event arrived: the 63rd birthday of Nana’s cousin, Mahesh Kaka, a man so obscure even Nani had to check who he was. The issue? Which group would host the official birthday greeting. At 8:00 a.m., “Dutta Sanskaar Bhavan” burst into celebration—GIFs of cakes exploding, messages reading “Many many happy returns of the day to our dearest Kaka!” and even a voice message from Nana himself, reciting a Sanskrit shloka followed by an oddly personal anecdote about how Mahesh once fell into a borewell in 1963. Meanwhile, Cousin Reboot was silent. Mahesh Kaka wasn’t even in that group. But Ritika, upon realizing the oversight, posted a generic birthday meme of a sloth holding balloons with the caption: “To all the forgotten Kakajis out there—may your internet speed always be faster than Nana’s beliefs.” That meme quickly went viral in the cousins’ college circles. Back in Sanskaar Bhavan, the absence of Ritika’s greeting became a matter of debate. Rukhsar Aunty finally wrote: “Even basic courtesy is missing nowadays. Very sad to see the new generation behave this way.” Nani followed up with: “One day these kids will also grow old. Tab samajh ayega.” Sandy replied with a neutral, praying it would serve as both distraction and peace offering. But it was clear—the war had shifted from ideology to etiquette, from facts to feelings. And yet, somewhere in the middle of all this digital debris, the bloodline remained the same. The Duttas had merely digitized their family dynamics. Passive-aggression was now pixelated, ego was encrypted, and love—though hidden under layers of emojis and misinformation—was still there, waiting for the next accidental group photo to momentarily unite them.
Chapter 5
By Saturday, the digital trench war between “Dutta Sanskaar Bhavan” and the now-fringe “Dutta Parivaar” had grown so absurd that even Google’s algorithm seemed confused. Nana was now getting ads for meditation apps while Ritika’s Instagram feed was flooded with turmeric-based skincare hacks—both victims of the same family feud, interpreted very differently by data bots. But the real-world consequences had begun to bleed beyond the boundaries of the screen. Pushpa, exhausted from playing emotional referee between father and daughter, fainted briefly in the kitchen due to a combination of heat and hypertension. As Sandeep rushed her to the clinic, he also sent a quiet voice note in the cousin group: “Guys… Ma fainted. BP shot up. Please stop for a bit?” The message hit harder than any meme. Even Tanay didn’t reply with a joke. For the first time in days, both factions paused. Nani sent frantic voice messages asking, “Kaise hua? Kis wajah se? Kya khaya tha?” while Ritika, guilt slicing through her like a freshly sharpened kitchen knife, video-called Sandeep and cried silently. Nana didn’t say much in the group, but he stayed oddly quiet for the rest of the day, forwarding only one blurry motivational image that read: “Health is wealth. Argument is bankruptcy.” Later, in a moment of soft surrender, he added Pushpa’s clinic selfie as his WhatsApp display picture with the caption: “Get well soon, beti.” It was an image none of them had expected—raw, pixelated, and human.
The silence lasted almost a full day before the rhythms of chaos returned in subtler form. Ritika, unsure how to navigate the emotional undercurrent, tried a new tactic—humour with humility. She posted an old group photo from Diwali 2016 in Cousin Reboot with a caption: “Before the meme wars. Before Nana learned emojis. When peace existed and so did matching kurta sets.” The photo—a badly lit but love-soaked capture of cousins, aunties, and Nana holding a sparkler like a war trophy—sparked a few soft chuckles. Even Sandeep responded with, “I remember this. I had severe gas that day.” The mood lifted. Encouraged, Ritika dropped a suggestion that would’ve been unthinkable a week ago: “Should we—maybe—have a virtual family game night? Like Pictionary on Zoom or something?” To her surprise, there was no sarcasm, no retort, not even from Isha. Tanay replied, “Only if we can play Meme-Antakshari.” But the real shocker came when Rukhsar Aunty—yes, the Silent Screenshotter—forwarded the same message to “Dutta Sanskaar Bhavan” with a note: “Nice idea. Fun might bring us back together.” For a few hours, hope flickered. Nana didn’t comment, but he didn’t delete the message either. That night, Sandeep hesitantly floated the idea in their family dinner, expecting Nana to erupt. Instead, the old man simply muttered, “As long as no one calls Netaji a meme, I’m okay with it.” Pushpa smiled for the first time that week.
But in true Dutta fashion, the path to peace couldn’t be smooth. When Sunday’s Zoom game night finally happened, it began on a surprisingly cheerful note. Everyone showed up—Ritika in a hoodie, Nana in a kurta and a tilak, Nani with her camera permanently pointed at the ceiling fan. Tanay shared screen and opened a makeshift digital whiteboard. The game: family-themed Pictionary. The first word? “Bhajan.” Nani drew what looked like a cauliflower with musical notes. Everyone laughed. Even Nana smiled. The mood began to shift, old cracks plastered temporarily by nostalgia and laughter. But it all came crashing down when Ritika, during her turn, tried to sketch “Fake News.” She drew a phone, flames, and what she thought was a harmless caricature of a man forwarding a message. But Nana, squinting, exploded: “Yeh toh mujhe bana diya!” And just like that, the thin fabric of reconciliation tore apart. Nani gasped. Sandy froze. Ritika’s smile dropped as she stammered, “No, no, it’s just symbolic—” But it was too late. Nana left the Zoom call with the thunderous click of a mouse. Ten minutes later, “Dutta Sanskaar Bhavan” posted a message: “Some people don’t want unity. They only want mockery. This group will now be strictly for sanskaari family members only.” No one replied. The rest of the Zoom call hung awkwardly in silence until Ankit finally said, “So… should we just play Ludo instead?” Laughter returned in broken pieces. In the end, as the call ended, and emojis began trickling in again, they all knew one thing: family wars don’t end in dramatic declarations—they just dissolve, only to reappear again in new avatars. This one wasn’t over. It had merely taken a pause to catch its breath.
Chapter 6
Monday rolled in like a guilty afterthought, heavy with the hangover of a Sunday night Zoom fiasco. In the wake of Nana’s dramatic digital exit, both factions of the Dutta family found themselves floating in a haze of muted regret and unspoken embarrassment. The “Dutta Sanskaar Bhavan” group had gone into radio silence mode—Nana hadn’t posted a single forward, no shlokas, no blurry temple photos, not even his 6:00 a.m. “Good Morning Bharat” greeting. The absence was louder than his usual barrage. Meanwhile, “Cousin Reboot” remained in low-key recovery mode, exchanging dry jokes and introspective messages like “Maybe we went too far?” and “Was the sketch really that offensive?” Ritika felt it the most. For all her sarcasm and sharp wit, she had never meant to hurt anyone—especially not the old man who once carried her on his shoulders during Ganpati visarjan. She scrolled through his old messages, the typos, the proudly misused hashtags, and sighed. Somewhere beneath the saffron filters and WhatsApp nationalism was her grandfather—the same man who cried while watching Taare Zameen Par and once told her to “never settle for a boy who doesn’t respect your mind.” But things had changed. Now, adminship wasn’t just about control—it had become a symbol, a seat of pride. And pride, especially in Indian families, was often the hardest beast to tame.
But what no one expected was the sudden emergence of a third power—a neutral force, disguised as an upgrade. On Tuesday afternoon, Tanay casually dropped a message in “Cousin Reboot”: “Guys, why are we still doing all this on WhatsApp? Let’s shift to Telegram. More privacy. Better stickers.” Initially dismissed as another Gen-Z whim, the idea snowballed quickly. Within minutes, Isha had created a Telegram channel called “Dutta 2.0 – Unfiltered & United,” featuring a sleek black logo with a flaming dhol. Invitations were sent with excitement, and soon cousins from distant corners of the world joined—Harsh from Canada, Mili from Dubai, and even Mita Di from Guwahati, who hadn’t been active since demonetisation. The group was alive again, pulsing with nostalgic photos, voice notes from childhood, and debates that were spirited but respectful. There were no admins, just shared trust. Even Sandy, hesitantly, joined with a message: “Here as an observer. Peace talks only.” But what truly shocked everyone was the new addition that popped up late at night—Pushpa Dutta. She had joined Telegram. Not just joined, but uploaded a profile photo (blurry but enthusiastic) and typed: “Enough is enough. I miss my family. Can we stop acting like strangers?” The message stunned everyone. Tanay replied with three applause emojis, Isha with a virtual hug sticker, and Ritika… she stared at it for five whole minutes before replying: “Ma, you’re the real admin we need.”
The news of this new platform and the growing migration didn’t take long to reach Nana. At first, he dismissed it. “Telegram toh terrorist log use karte hain,” he muttered to Pushpa, who didn’t argue but quietly showed him her new profile photo. Nana scowled but didn’t comment. But later that evening, while pretending to nap, he peeked at her phone and saw a photo of Tanay holding a bowl of Maggi captioned “Maggi Mondays are back!”—and below it, dozens of laughing emojis from people who hadn’t replied to his bhajans in years. That night, Nana sat alone with his old phone, screen glowing dimly against his wrinkled fingers. He typed “How to download Telegram” into YouTube, fumbled through ads, and finally clicked the right icon. When the app asked for his name, he typed slowly: Sudhir Dutta. Then, with a long breath, he searched for “Dutta 2.0.” It was private. He couldn’t enter. He stared at the screen for a moment, lips tight, eyes unreadable. Then he closed the app and opened WhatsApp again. In “Dutta Sanskaar Bhavan”, he posted just one message: “I have seen many revolutions in this family. Telegram won’t last. Let’s see who remembers the elders when the Maggi runs out.” And with that, he went offline. But what he didn’t know was that Ritika had already sent him a private invite on Telegram. It sat quietly in his inbox—an olive branch shaped like a notification. All he had to do now was click.
Chapter 7
By Wednesday morning, the digital geography of the Dutta family had evolved from a simple WhatsApp group to a bizarre tri-state of communications—each platform hosting its own version of the truth. “Dutta Sanskaar Bhavan” still clung to tradition, though its engagement had dwindled, reduced mostly to Nani’s bhajan links, Rukhsar Aunty’s passive-aggressive festival greetings, and Sandy’s lone cricket updates. “Cousin Reboot” remained a buzzing think tank of chaos and commentary, occasionally disrupted by philosophical tangents about cancel culture, caste dynamics, and whether Nana’s generation could ever be truly “digitally rehabilitated.” And then, in a quiet, almost sacred corner of Telegram, “Dutta 2.0 – Unfiltered & United” became the new family living room—welcoming, balanced, nostalgic, and weirdly calm. There were no debates here, just dumb reels from Isha, Tanay’s daily “Maggi Monday,” and pictures of someone’s lunch sent without judgment. Even Ankit, who had started the week explaining fascism to Nana, now shared a picture of a lizard on his balcony with the caption: “It blinked at me. I feel chosen.” But the platform jump came with its own dilemma—should they formally abandon WhatsApp? Ritika wasn’t sure. Part of her missed the noise, the battles, the accidental poetry of Nana’s unpunctuated rage. And while Pushpa had taken to Telegram like a duck to detox water, she kept WhatsApp for one reason alone: Nana hadn’t migrated. Not yet.
That changed on a Thursday morning, with a single chime. Ritika was brushing her teeth when she heard it—the soft, unmistakable ping of Telegram. She glanced at her phone and froze. New member added: Sudhir Dutta. He hadn’t said a word, hadn’t replied to the welcome messages or Tanay’s “Long live the legend!” gif. But his presence was seismic. Within hours, Dutta 2.0 erupted like a dormant volcano touched by a matchstick of awkward affection. Tanay posted a meme with Nana’s face photoshopped onto Neo from The Matrix, captioned “Welcome to the real world, Nana.” Isha made a sticker that read “Nana Approves” and it quickly went viral in the group. Even Sandy commented with a rare enthusiasm: “Okay now it’s official—Telegram is home.” But the real surprise came later that afternoon when Nana finally typed something, letter by careful letter: “Namaste sabko. I’m still learning this app. No shlokas today. Just seeing how this works.” No emojis. No flags. Just words. The response was immediate and overwhelming. Heart emojis. Claps. A voice note from Pushpa whispering “Thank you, Baba.” Ritika stared at the message for several seconds, the toothpaste slowly drying on her lips. She didn’t reply right away. She just opened her gallery, found an old photo—her and Nana eating ice cream on a bench at Sarasbaug, her head on his shoulder—and quietly posted it in the group with the caption: “Glad you’re here.”
What followed was not reconciliation, exactly, but something gentler: coexistence. Nana, gradually warming up to Telegram, began posting small things—photos of the garden, a blurry rainbow, a forwarded newspaper clipping about an 88-year-old marathon runner that he admired deeply. Ritika, for her part, stopped fact-checking everything he said. Not because she believed it, but because she had begun to understand that sometimes love isn’t in the correction—it’s in the pause, the letting go, the making space for someone’s version of the world even if it runs on dial-up logic. Their digital war had not ended with a surrender or a grand apology. Instead, it had slowly deflated like an old birthday balloon left hanging in a room no one remembered decorating. The WhatsApp groups still existed, like haunted monuments of a recent past—“Sanskaar Bhavan” saw occasional pings, and “Dutta Parivaar” now mostly held forwarded good mornings from distant relatives who never knew the war occurred. But Dutta 2.0 had become the heart. A quiet, chaotic, forgiving heart where bhajans and memes sat side by side, and no one fought over admin rights anymore—because everyone knew, finally, that the real admin was never one person. It was the messy, ridiculous, ever-updating love of being family.
Chapter 8
Sunday arrived with that lazy, drifting energy peculiar to Indian households—the kind where nobody quite wants to begin the day, yet everything slowly falls into place. In Pune, the Dutta household buzzed softly with morning rituals: the aroma of ajwain parathas drifting from Pushpa’s kitchen, the background hum of a devotional channel on low volume, and the occasional ping from Telegram. The WhatsApp groups had grown cobwebbed now—ghost towns echoing with stale Diwali greetings and forgotten polls about whether to order rasgulla or gulab jamun for the next family function. Even Nana had stopped checking them. That morning, as he stirred his sugarless tea and read the newspaper headline “Digital Detox: India’s New Obsession,” he chuckled. “Detox?” he muttered, shaking his head. “We were the toxins.” He glanced at his phone—not WhatsApp, but Telegram—where the cousins had begun sharing childhood photos as part of an unspoken Sunday nostalgia series. Tanay had uploaded a picture of a younger Sandeep in oversized sunglasses holding a water gun. Isha added a video clip of Ritika dancing offbeat at a school function. And Ritika, in what could only be called an olive branch carved with glitter, posted a photo of Nana sitting cross-legged on a swing, reading India Today, with toddler Ritika tugging at his moustache. Caption: “This man has survived World War II, Y2K, and Ritika’s tantrums.” The reaction was swift—hearts, laughs, tears. But most importantly, Nana’s reply came in under a minute: “And now Telegram.”
At precisely 10:30 a.m., without any announcement or melodrama, Nana did something that none of them expected—he opened WhatsApp, clicked on the old group “Dutta Sanskaar Bhavan,” scrolled through the stagnant sea of muted members, and tapped Exit Group. Not with anger. Not with sadness. Just clarity. Then he did the same for “Dutta Parivaar.” One by one, like shedding old skin, he left them behind. The act was so unceremonious, so practical, it stunned even himself. For a man who had once forwarded 33 temple photos in a single afternoon, this felt like quiet enlightenment. Pushpa watched him from the dining table, eyebrows raised. “You’re leaving?” she asked. “Everyone’s already left,” Nana replied, his tone light, almost peaceful. “Now it’s just echoes.” Meanwhile, Sandeep, checking his own phone in Hinjewadi, saw the alert: “Sudhir Dutta left the group.” He blinked. Then checked the second group. Same notification. For a moment, he feared another cold war. But then came the message on Telegram—sent by Nana, no emojis, no filters: “Let’s keep this one simple. No admins. No forwards. Just family.” The message settled like incense smoke, warm and wise. Even Ritika—who had built entire digital battlegrounds—felt something settle in her chest. Not defeat. Not victory. Just release.
That afternoon, something truly rare happened: a spontaneous family gathering—offline. It began with Pushpa’s plan for a small lunch with Sandy and Ritika, and somehow it evolved into Nani, Tanay, even Isha joining on a video call projected awkwardly onto the television screen. The dining table was chaotic: rice overcooked, raita spilled, chairs borrowed from neighbours. And yet it was perfect. Nana, dressed in a crisp kurta, gave a short speech no one expected. “This family fought over pixels,” he said, gesturing to his phone. “But what I learned is—forwarding a message is easy. Forwarding love… takes effort.” There was laughter, eye-rolls, even a tear or two. After lunch, Tanay pulled out an ancient board game—Scrabble, dusty and missing the Z tile. They played anyway. As evening fell over Pune and chai was served in mis-matched mugs, the Duttas sat together—some in person, some on screen—not as factions, not as admins, but just as family. No hashtags. No screenshots. No war. Just silence punctuated by laughter, the way it used to be before all the apps. And for the first time in weeks, no one touched their phones. Not even Nana. Because some notifications, it turns out, are best left unread.
Chapter 9
Monday began not with chaos, but a curious stillness—a silence that, for the Duttas, was not ominous but earned. The great digital battle that had consumed their daily lives for nearly two weeks had quietly resolved itself not with dramatic speeches or muting sprees, but through attrition, emotional exhaustion, and a deeply underestimated lunch menu. The WhatsApp groups, now empty and unceremoniously left by all, sat like forgotten parks—overgrown with stickers, abandoned polls, and unread “Jai Shree Ram” forwards. Ritika, once the proud face of “Cousin Reboot,” stared at the pinned messages one last time. There, under an old link titled “Ten ways to talk to your elders without yelling” was Tanay’s meme of Nana photoshopped into Iron Man’s suit. She smiled, not bitterly, but with a surprising warmth. She tapped “Archive Chat.” No fanfare. Just the subtle digital burial of an era. Elsewhere, in the calm confines of his small study, Nana too had begun a similar ritual. He didn’t understand what “archiving” was, but he knew when something was finished. He opened Telegram and changed his profile bio from “Proud Indian. Jai Hind.” to simply “Dadu. Reader. Still learning.” That evening, for the first time in many days, he messaged Ritika directly: “Can you show me how to send stickers like that dancing cat? Nani laughed a lot seeing it.” Ritika replied with a heart emoji—no sarcasm, no footnote. Just a shared peace treaty sealed in pixels.
Meanwhile, Pushpa was undergoing her own quiet transformation. Once relegated to the role of mediator, emotional sponge, and “designated sandwich-maker during digital war,” she now emerged as the surprising torchbearer of balance. She had started posting weekly recipes on Telegram—just a photo of a dish with a short caption: “Today: lauki koftas. No rebellion in them. Just haldi.” The posts got more engagement than anyone expected. Even cousins from abroad began asking for ingredients and alternatives. Suddenly, food became the new diplomacy. Nana would offer trivia like, “Did you know lauki is good for blood pressure?” and Tanay would reply, “Does it also reduce WhatsApp toxicity?” Nani would chuckle, and even Isha started posting a few of her own fusion recipes. Through this culinary truce, the family began reclaiming what had always belonged to them: togetherness without condition. And yet, shadows lingered—especially in the form of a new invite. Sandeep, in a moment of overly enthusiastic optimism, had created a new WhatsApp group titled: “Dutta Legacy – For Future Generations.” It was simple, understated, and invite-only. He added only Pushpa, Ritika, and Nana. When they received the notification, the three sat in separate homes, staring at their screens, collectively unsure whether to laugh or groan. Nana was the first to type: “Let this be for memories. No politics. Only blessings and birthdays.” Ritika replied: “And memes, Dadu. Don’t forget memes.”
So the family settled—not into utopia, but something far more realistic: functional chaos. Telegram became their everyday adda, their morning tea table, their photo album, and their meme factory. The old WhatsApp battlegrounds remained untouched, like locked storage rooms in ancestral homes—unvisited but respected. “Cousin Reboot” quietly dissolved, with its final pinned message reading: “We rebooted. And we learned Ctrl+Alt+Respect.” Nana, now a regular on Telegram, began exploring channels on poetry, Ayurveda, and gardening. He even joined a group called “Dadu Debaters,” where he argued about cricket with strangers from Chennai and Lucknow. Ritika focused on her postgrad applications and started a blog called “The WhatsApp Diaries,” cheekily chronicling her family’s online civil war under fictional names. Pushpa finally got time to finish a half-done embroidery project that had been sitting for three years. Nani learned how to send voice notes without accidentally activating her front camera. In the end, the Duttas didn’t change the world. They didn’t even change each other entirely. But they changed just enough to keep the threads intact. The group admin war didn’t end in defeat or conquest. It ended in understanding. A quiet lesson in ego, love, and the infinite capacity of a family to break, forward, archive—and somehow, still remain.
Chapter 10
The final week of the Great Dutta Digital Saga began with an alert that no one expected: “New member added to Dutta Legacy – For Future Generations.” It was a name unfamiliar to some—“Vedant Dutta”, age eleven, resident mischief-maker, son of Sandy and Pushpa. Until now, Vedant had been considered too young to be involved in family chat politics. But Sandy, inspired by Nana’s digital evolution and Ritika’s new-found diplomacy, decided it was time. “Better to teach him how to engage early,” he said, “before someone else forwards him history in JPEGs.” Vedant’s first message in the group was predictably disruptive: a single sticker of a farting cow with the caption, “Good moooorning!” Pushpa nearly dropped her phone. Nana was appalled. “Is this the future of our legacy?” he exclaimed. But even as his frown deepened, something softened too. He replied, after a full two minutes: “Beta, this is not sanskaar. But… it’s quite funny.” The group erupted in laughing emojis. Vedant, emboldened, sent a dancing Modi GIF next. Ritika typed quickly, “Okay, let’s discuss GIF boundaries later.” But she was smiling. Because this, in its absurd way, was proof—the baton was passing. Not gracefully, not solemnly, but with stickers, sarcasm, and acceptance. And for the first time, the family group felt less like a battlefield and more like a park. Messy, unpredictable, full of people shouting in different directions—but still, a place where everyone came to sit.
Over the days that followed, the digital detox turned into a redefined ritual. Every Friday, Isha initiated “Throwback Tag Day,” where someone would dig out an old family photo, and others would tag each person with exaggerated or fictional titles. A photo of Nana from 1985 on a scooter was captioned: “Agent Sanskaar 007: License to Forward.” Another of Nani in her silk sari became “Queen of Mute Groups and Masala.” Pushpa’s college photo—complete with crimped hair—became viral within the family. Sandy had his revenge when he posted Ritika’s childhood essay on “Why Bhajans Are Better Than Pop Songs”, which she had once written to impress Nani. The digital space, once burdened with correction, became a playground of connection. And gradually, the old instincts—the urge to argue, to dominate the group, to be the loudest “admin”—faded. Even Nana began responding to facts with “Interesting, beta. Will read more.” That one sentence sent Isha into mild shock and made Tanay create a meme titled: “Growth Arc of a Legend.” They laughed, often and freely, but without cruelty. When Sandy accidentally forwarded an outdated news article, Ritika corrected him gently and added, “Don’t worry Dad, at least it wasn’t about turmeric curing heartbreak this time.” Nana replied with “That one might still be true, though.” The family didn’t fix everything, but they fixed enough. They replaced suspicion with teasing, confrontation with curiosity, and most importantly—they stayed.
On a warm Sunday evening in March, the entire family gathered—not virtually, but physically—for the first time in years, at a rented bungalow in Lonavala. Pushpa had insisted: “No screens at dinner.” It was a disaster for the first hour—Nani kept tapping her phone instinctively, Ritika tried to explain to Vedant what “offline” meant, and Tanay attempted to scroll using a coaster. But by the time the second round of pakoras arrived, something magical happened. The jokes flowed. Old wounds were joked about. Nana told the story of how he accidentally texted “Jai Mata Di” to his dentist. Laughter rolled like monsoon thunder across the hills. Even as the night deepened, no one reached for their phones. They were all there—present, imperfect, opinionated, and still very much a family. The next morning, as they packed up to return to their busy lives, Nana pulled Ritika aside. “Beta,” he said, holding her hand firmly, “you were right to question. And I was right to care. But maybe we both forgot that in this family, it’s not about being right. It’s about being together.” Ritika smiled, her throat tight. She nodded. Then handed him a small sticker book she’d brought. On the first page was a cartoon of a moustached grandpa holding a smartphone that read: “Dadu: Admin for Life.” Nana laughed. He didn’t argue. He just hugged her. And in that unspoken embrace, the Duttas found what no forwarded message could deliver—peace.
End
