Welcome, Welcome, Welcome…. To another episode of Gapshap with Ganesh! This is how all of GwG episodes start (its my vlog series) Want to see them? ye dekho. **

Today’s article is about a character I accidentally invented and then not so accidentally carried for six years. And as per the lore his name is Ganesh and he is my super proud head intern. And yes, the story is stupid. I’ve always said it’s frickin stupid, nonsensical. Everyone else insists it’s not, but I’m convinced that’s just them being polite.

So let’s rewind.

It’s 2019.

Six years ago, which feels illegal to say out loud because makes me sound old. OTTs were juuuuuust exploding in India; not the way they are today, but enough for the country to collectively lose its mind. Sacred Games had become the first Indian show on Netflix. Season 1 was a cultural earthquake. Season 2 dropped in 2019, and every college kid was either discussing it or hating it. S01 was much better than S02 - I agree. What the hell happened to writers in S02? I was in third year, exam season, which obviously means we studied only at 2 am because who the hell studies earlier on. I had just finished an episode, and there’s this tiny, nothing line where Guruji asks, “Kaise ho, Ganesh?”

Cut to: Insti (we called our institute as insti) campus, past midnight, standing in a long, sleep-deprived queue at Ramu’s shop—the only place that still had caffeine and the will to live. A bunch of guys in front of me were blocking the line, laughing, not moving, living their best 3 am life.

I tried getting their attention. Nothing.

Then, for some reason that cannot be scientifically explained, my brain chose chaos.

Instead of saying, “Bhai, zara side?”

I blurted, “Kaise ho, Ganesh?”

Silence. Then eruption. They burst out laughing. Its not even the case that someone of the group had the name Ganesh. It was completely random. Completely nonsensical. Completely hilarious in the sleep-deprived ecosystem of exam week.

And that was it. A stupid one-liner became a personality. For weeks after, I kept calling people Ganesh. They started calling me Ganesh. I built an entire bit around it; “Hi, I’m Ganesh, I’m interning at Anuj Khandalikar’s office. Anuj has left the country to pursue higher-order research.”

Peak nonsense.

At the same time, I was posting these micro-vlogs on Instagram, and I titled them Gapshap with Ganesh. Somehow it stuck. Friends began introducing me as Ganesh. My Insti identity basically split into two people like some low-budget Marvel multiverse.

And here’s the wild part.

Even today, six years later if I bump into someone from college, they still greet me with:

“Arre Ganesh, why no new video?”

I still get random screenshots from friends whenever they stumble upon another human named Ganesh: “Saw this and thought of you.”