A recent incident involving a man from Bengaluru and the online grocery platform Blinkit has generated a lot of discussion on language usage and customer service on social media.
The problem started when the man got a Blinkit message that he thought was dangerous. He wrote in a post on X,
“Blinkit sent a harmful notification and wished me ‘Gaya,’ which means ‘wound’ in Kannada.”
He posted screenshots of his chat with Blinkit’s customer service, in which he threatened to report the company to the police if he got any more threatening notifications, to back up his claims. Blinkit stopped delivering notifications in what he called “alien languages” after he filed a complaint.
Blinkit sent a harmful notification and wished me "Gaya," which means "wound" in Kannada. I told them, if I received one more threatening notification, I would lodge a police complaint. After that they stopped sending nonsense in alien languages. That's how we need to deal! pic.twitter.com/yPtvFdfhIV
— ಕಣಾದ (@Metikurke) July 15, 2024
Later, the individual revised his post to reflect the fact that Blinkit had only been sending notifications in English for the previous month. He mentioned that Blinkit would implement Kannada notifications as well if more users voiced their complaints.
With almost 900,000 views and more than 1,000 likes, the post has attracted a lot of attention and elicited a range of responses from users. The man’s behaviour was questioned by some, who said he overreacted, while others voiced worries about his mental state. Satire to pointed questions concerning his command of the language were exchanged.
