New Delhi: Famed for his mastery over the English language, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor found himself in an unusual spot Thursday — panned for describing the Nepal flash floods as “drama that had taken place in the hills” and overlooking the nuance of the words.
The comment led to a veritable backlash on social media, with one post questioning the “poor choice of words for someone with such a rich vocabulary” and others labelling him insensitive.
Tharoor, who is in Nepal, expressed concern over the disaster in a post on X and said, “Took off for Kathmandu yesterday, blissfully unaware of the drama that had taken place in the hills and caused such catastrophic damage.”
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He went on to say, “A severe, sudden flash flood struck northern Nepal’s Rasuwa district near the Tibet border, causing widespread destruction along the Bhote Koshi and Trishuli rivers. Global warming and/or an earthquake in Tibet may have caused a large chunk of a glacier to break off and fall into the valley below, experts surmise.”
The Thiruvananthapuram MP said he learned on arrival of the loss of life and the fact that some 2,000 or more people are estimated to be missing.
Raging floodwaters destroyed at least 19 motorable bridges, washed away roughly 40 km of the Betrawati Rasuwagadhi highway, and heavily damaged eight operational hydropower projects, Tharoor said.
“I fully support the Indian government’s immediate pledge of relief assistance. Nepal needs all the help it can get,” he said.
“My heart goes out to the victims and their loved ones, who include large numbers of Indian tourists, including a hundred performing the Kailash-Mansarovar Yatra. Prayers for the missing; may they be rescued soon,” the Congress leader said.
Notwithstanding the larger message, many social media users picked on his use of words: “blissfully unaware of the drama that had taken place in the hills”.
Took off for Katmandu yesterday, blissfully unaware of the drama that had taken place in the hills and caused such catastrophic damage. A severe, sudden flash flood struck northern Nepal’s Rasuwa district near the Tibet border, causing widespread destruction along the Bhote… pic.twitter.com/qxcDJgEK8C
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) August 27, 2026
“Was nature’s fury a ‘drama’? How can you be so insensitive in your choice of words? What good is knowing the dictionary if you don’t know what to say when? Your ‘sympathy’ seems like the drama here!” a user said.
Another user said, “Sir, you are Shakespeare of Indian English. Is the usage of the word “DRAMA” in the second sentence of first para is appropriate?”
An X user said the use of “unaware of the drama” was a “poor choice of words for someone with such a rich vocabulary”.
“Mr.Exasperating Farrago – Is this ‘drama’?” a user said, recalling the unusual word, meaning “confused mixture”, that the wordsmith-author-politician introduced to our daily lexicon.
“Drama?? You are a wordsmith, and this is what you came up with? Really…,” another post read.
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