Viral, but not a virus, meet the Indian man named Kovid - GulfToday

Viral, but not a virus, meet the Indian man named Kovid

Kovid-Kapoor

Kovid Kapoor.

What's in a name? For Indian travel start-up founder Kovid Kapoor, it has made him a social media sensation.
The 31-year-old's Twitter profile declares: "My name is Kovid and I am not a virus."

He posted this week that he had travelled outside India for the first time since the onset of the pandemic "and got a bunch of people amused by my name".

"Future foreign trips are going to be fun!" he said in a tweet that had been liked 40,000 times and received 4,000 retweets by Friday.
The comment triggered a barrage of jokes, memes, messages and interview requests, in a moment of light relief as the highly contagious Omicron variant sees case numbers surge in India.

KOVID-star

Kapoor has joined in himself, declaring that he was been "Kovid positive since 1990" and posting a picture holding a bottle of Corona beer.
"I am Kovid that wants more travel," the co-founder of Holidify quipped.

The sudden spurt of attention was "totally unexpected" but he hoped it would bring some publicity to his business during a "very difficult time" for the sector, he told AFP.

He has never had a shortage of ice-breakers at business meetings since the start of the pandemic, but has told coffee shops not to announce his name when handing him a beverage.

Kovid is a highly unusual name in India but means a scholar or a learned individual in Hindi and Sanskrit, with the 'd' pronounced with a very soft emphasis.

Kapoor's mother picked the name well before his birth.
"It's a memorable name with a beautiful meaning," he said. "It makes for a striking introduction with anyone. I'd never change it."

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