India: Keralites read ‘Karela’ Indian word for bitter gourd as ‘Kerala’ on Twitter

Twitter is a platform where people with a keen eye find food in the most unusual ways. Hindi word for bitter gourd, 'Karela', is trending on Twitter, when many users from Kerala thought their state name was being misspelt as usual.

"#karela is trending but I don't know why I read it Kerala," wrote a user who goes by the handle @NitinV69 and promptly posted a picture of Karela, the fruit, and Kerala, the state with a map. Both have identical shapes.

According to Twitter, 'Karela' is the 27th trending item from Sunday morning where many people are sharing recipes and some say how karela is their favourite dish. Quite often people tend to misspell the name of the state Kerala as Karela, so Keralites are reading Karela as Kerala.

Another twitter user @adilmohed tweeps: "Just nature 3D printing Kerala's map. If you look costly, you can see Western Ghats. #Karela and #Kerala are related", posting a picture of hanging gourds.

@mathewmatters tweeted, "Who all saw the word #karela trending and in the first look thought #Kerala ne ab kya kar diya??? (What did Kerala do now?) Karela Rocks. Kerala Rocks."

A social media user @MrAnurag01 struggled to see the difference. "I realised I'm wrong only when I saw photos of #karela again and again. The real struggle," he wrote, adding a confused emoticon.

People in Kerala often take offence when the name of their home state is misspelt. But this time it seems, there was no mistake – karela was meant to be karela.