Making Bill Gates famous for Dollyites

Going by today's parlance and play, influencers are folks who are seen to be adept at doing one thing: influencing. To try and sway opinion - something writers on this page covertly and overtly try, most of the times with little effect - is their USP, the SP in USP being the whole point. But Sunil Patil a.k.a. Dolly Chaiwala underlines the fact that old-style influencers are still alive and kicking - influencers who become influential after becoming famous for doing something else than influencing - in Dolly's case, being a good and savvy tea-concocter. Which is why he's been so successful in making a customer - in last week's case, a random White senior citizen - famous for his legions of followers. Sure, for you, a Microsoft co-founder may be the bigger influencer. But for a different demographic, it's not Dolly who gains popularity when Bill Gates shares a video of his visit to Dolly Ki Tapri on Ravindra Nath Tagore Marg in Nagpur for a cuppa, but Gates, who till then was unfamiliar to most of Dolly's burgeoning fan base.

Will the million-plus followers of Dolly's @dolly_ki_tapri_nagpur on Insta now prefer Microsoft products and services over its competitors? We don't know. Will Bill Gates' admirers flock to Dolly's mobile chai cart? We don't know. But we know that influencing is a two-way street, depending on your chaiGPT category.