Let’s get one thing straight. The internet is freaking out about a guy mixing gutkha on an airplane, and I honestly can’t decide if it’s the most predictable or the most absurd thing I’ve seen this week. A grainy video shows some dude in a black t-shirt, thousands of feet in the air on his way to Thailand, casually preparing his little packet of tobacco-lime-areca-nut mush. He's just rubbing it in his palm like he’s seasoning a steak.
The online commentariat, offcourse, immediately split into two camps. You have the "Civic Sense Brigade," wringing their hands about the tarnished image of an entire nation. Then you have the defenders, the whatabout-ists, firing back with, "Well, what about alcohol on flights?"
Give me a break. Comparing a complimentary gin and tonic served by a flight attendant to bringing your own DIY carcinogen kit on board is just… peak internet brain. One is a regulated, taxable part of the service; the other is a personal chemistry experiment that ends with a foul-smelling wad of something that needs to be disposed of. And let's be real, the core anxiety here isn't about the act of mixing. It’s about the inevitable, disgusting second act: the spit. Where does that crimson gunk go at 30,000 feet? Does he swallow it for four hours straight, as one commenter heroically claimed to witness? Or does he try to prank an air hostess into opening a window for him, which, yes, has actually happened.
This isn't just about one guy. He's just the unfortunate soul who got caught on camera. This is about a culture clash playing out in a pressurized tube, and honestly, I'm not sure who to root for.
From Annoying Habit to Acidic Decay
If you think this is just about public nuisance, you haven’t been paying attention. This isn't just about aesthetics or being grossed out. This is about watching a piece of history dissolve in real-time.
Take Kolkata’s Howrah Bridge. This absolute unit of engineering was built without a single nut or bolt. It survived Japanese bombing raids during World War II. It has withstood earthquakes and the daily weight of millions of people for over 80 years. But it’s losing a war of attrition against spit. Engineers first sounded the alarm years ago, finding that the acidic cocktail of gutkha, paan, and saliva was literally corroding the steel bases of the bridge’s pillars. They had to wrap the pillars in fiberglass, like putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound. Kolkata's Howrah Bridge survived World War bombs- but is losing to 'Gutkha spit'. Internet says, 'Ajay Devgn supremacy'
This is a bad analogy. No, 'bad' doesn't cover it—this is a five-alarm dumpster fire of a metaphor. It’s more like watching termites chew through the Declaration of Independence. Not with a bang, but with a slow, corrosive, reddish-brown drip. And the response online? Jokes. "Ajay Devgn supremacy," they quip, referencing a Bollywood actor famous for his paan masala ads. "Power of ₹5," another sneers. It’s gallows humor for a nation watching its own landmarks get eaten alive.
And it’s not just the old stuff. When Bihar inaugurated its first international cricket stadium—a brand-new, 40,000-seat symbol of pride—what happened on day one? The walls were christened with gutkha stains. The person filming the viral video of the fresh red splatters on the bare brick wall wasn't even surprised. He just deadpanned, "The attack has begun." When the signature mark of your culture is a corrosive stain on brand-new infrastructure, maybe it’s time to ask some harder questions.
The Real Price Tag
But here's where the dark humor curdles in your throat. Because while we're debating etiquette on airplanes and laughing at memes about decaying bridges, this stuff is quietly destroying lives in ways that are far more brutal.
In Uttar Pradesh, a 26-year-old woman named Jyoti Yadav got into a fight with her husband. He was a driver, and he refused to give her money to buy gutkha. She was addicted. It was a regular fight, the kind that probably happened in thousands of homes that day. Except this time, it ended differently. That evening, she poisoned herself. And she poisoned her three young children. UP Woman Kills Self, 2 Children As Husband Refuses To Give Money For 'Gutkha'
When her husband came home from work, he found his one-year-old daughter dead. His wife and four-year-old daughter died on the way to the hospital. His five-year-old son is the only survivor, and his condition is critical.
Suddenly, the guy on the plane doesn't seem so important anymore, does he? The red stains on the stadium wall just look tragic. This isn't a quirky cultural habit. It’s an addiction powerful enough to drive a mother to kill herself and her own children over a few rupees. It fuels crime, too—a trader in Ahmedabad was just scammed out of his life savings, over Rs 8.7 lakh, in a bogus wholesale gutkha business deal.
So why aren’t we talking about that? Is it because a viral video is easier to digest than the story of a dead family? We’ll argue endlessly about "civic sense" because it’s a comfortable, middle-class complaint. It allows us to feel superior without having to confront the ugly reality of poverty, addiction, and the corporate machinery that profits from selling these little packets of despair for pennies.
The Stain Won't Wash Out
Let's stop pretending this is about manners. It's not. "Civic sense" is the laziest, most superficial lens through which to view this whole mess. The guy on the plane, the stains on the bridge, the tragedy in that small village—they're all symptoms of the same disease. It’s a disease of systemic apathy, fueled by an industry that has its hooks deep into the poorest and most vulnerable parts of a society. We can laugh at the memes and shake our heads at the videos, but the stain is deeper than we think, and it sure as hell isn't coming out in the wash.