An Instagram video featuring a woman in a yellow kurta reciting a sharp Urdu couplet about old money and new money has crossed 30 million views in a single day. But the woman in the clip, who appears under the name Tanvi Joshi, does not exist.
In the viral video, she smiles at the audience before delivering the lines: "Khaandani raees rakhte hain mijaaz naram apna... tumhara lehja bata raha hai ki tumhari shoharat nayi nayi hai." The couplet suggests that those from established wealth carry themselves with grace, while a person's tone can reveal newly acquired fame.
However, the verse appears to have been altered. The original sher is widely attributed to noted Urdu poet Shabina Adeeb, where the word "daulat" is used instead of "shoharat".
The correct version reads:
"Jo khandani raees hain wo mizaaj rakhte hain narm apna,
Tumhara lehja bata raha hai tumhari daulat nai nai hai."
The lines imply that those from respected, old families usually speak gently and behave with grace. In contrast, the tone of someone newly rich may reveal a lack of refinement. The shift from "daulat" to "shoharat" subtly changes the meaning from wealth to fame.
Watch the video here:
The performance drew enthusiastic applause online, with many users praising the sharpness of the lines and debating the correct pronunciation of "mizaj". Few initially realised that the person seen reciting the verse was an AI-generated model.
The Instagram profile presenting Tanvi Joshi describes her as a "Punjabi girl". Viewers later began questioning the account after noticing her unusually flawless appearance and slight variations in voice across videos.
The audio used in the viral clip was also not original. It was lifted from a video posted days earlier by Marziya Shanu Pathan, a corporator with the Thane Municipal Corporation. She had recited the same couplet at a public event and shared it on Instagram. Her original post garnered fewer than nine lakh views, far less than the AI-generated version.
Pathan herself highlighted the duplication. Commenting under the viral video, she wrote, "Aye thats my voiceeeeeee," prompting many to recognise that the clip was synthetic. The episode shows how convincingly AI-generated content can blur the boundary between authenticity and fabrication, raising serious questions about consent, attribution and digital impersonation.
