CURIOUS CASE OF ‘SAAPTIYA RIZZ

Whether it's flirtation, affection, genuine concern, or even conflict resolution, it all begins - and often ends - with this single phrase for Tamil men

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TEXTING has gone from a monthly top-up ritual for 100 text messages to the endless scroll of blue ticks and typing bubbles on the Internet. From the Blackberry era, where BBM was highly coveted, to today's WhatsApp chats, Instagram Direct Messages (DMS), and dating apps' in-app messaging features, texting has become the pulse of staying connected.

In India, texting has always carried a certain cultural weight, especially when it comes to flirting. Back in the Nokia 1100 days, where love bloomed over missed calls and thumb stamina (remember pressing 4 three times to type I, 5 three times to type L, and so on?), texting was the safest way to express love without actually saying it. Now the tradition, for Gen Z and Millennials, lives on with emojis, voice notes, and carefully crafted replies. Yet, one thing hasn't changed for Tamil men sliding into chats. The opener is almost always the same: "Saaptiya?" (Did you eat?) or the respectful "saapteengala?" Memes, centering around Tamil men's apparent inability to go past the ritualistic "saaptiya?" and its follow-up "enna saapta?", while speaking with their love interests, often flood our social media feeds. Some of them take it a step further, jokingly labelling them "saaptiyasexuals" for their undying loyalty to this one phrase. Gen Z has even made it their own by adding their slang to it, calling it the 'Saaptiya Rizz'. Rizz, a slang in popular culture, is short for 'charisma' and is often used to describe a person's ability to flirt or charm others in romantic contexts.