An India show that emulates Comedy Central.
By Madhav Khanna
CHICAGO: Over the past two years, the idea of entertainment for Indians shifted from the saas-bahu serials and lame award shows to a small number of YouTube channels, which represent the burgeoning comedy scene in India.
The Viral Fever and All India Bakchod (AIB) represent the best comedic sketch and stand up artists that India has to offer. From the Chai-Sutta Chronicles, to lampooning Alia Bhatt, to taking the mickey out of Shah Rukh Khan and now roasting the life out of Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh – comedy in India finally went viral.
We are used to our Bollywood stars being extremely sensitive about their public image. They walk on eggshells and rarely ever have a sense of humor. The only time we will ever see them laugh is either when a camera catches them off-guard or at an awards show where they have cleared the jokes beforehand.
The roast of Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor organized by AIB was a testament to how far the celebrity culture has come in India; the irreverence displayed on stage was truly a sight to watch.
From jokes about Karan Johar’s sexuality to the wacky references about Ranveer Singh being a pervert, this roast ripped to shreds the proverbial envelope. The roast reflected a new generation of Bollywood – or at least some of them, which was confident enough to take a joke on themselves and in their own words, have a certain orifice in their body ripped open. My favorite part has to be Ranveer and Arjun taking the mickey out of Raghu Ram (of Roadies fame) by acting out his pre-masturbation ritual.
In the west we are used to seeing Comedy Central routinely ‘roast’ celebrities ranging from Donald Trump to Charlie Sheen. The AIB Roast was as good as they come.
From the rotating jokes about the weight of a certain comic- Tanmay Bhatt, to the relationship status of Ranveer Singh, this roast spared no one. In a country where people are offended by almost everything under the sun, the fact that this roast even took place was amazing.
Imagine if I told you five years ago that six comics and four films stars were getting up on stage insulting, abusing and generally debasing each other in Mumbai and that too in front of 4000 people – you would have thrown me into the loony bin.
However, today the narrative of Indian entertainment has drastically shifted from the scripted TV shows steeped in “sanskar”, to truly original and innovative content, which could give a damn about what society considers to be politically correct.
Winston Churchill once said, “A joke is a very serious thing”. Indian society in the past few decades had lost its sense of humor. Apart from an Amul hoarding here and a Laxman cartoon there, we were unable to see the lighter side of life. These new age creators have sparked a comic renaissance liberating India from its overtly sensitive slumber. They are teaching us that despite the rat race that has become our lives, despite all the many problems we face, let’s learn to laugh at ourselves along the way.
Thus, it’s disappointing that the AIB Roast has been pulled down from YouTube, and the creators of it are not churning out new material, ‘slaying’ more Bollywood stars.
It’s unfortunate that a star of the caliber of Aamir Khan came out against the AIB Roast, finding the humor ‘violent’, the swearing on the show offensive.
Khan couldn’t be more wrong.
One can only hope that this is just the beginning of an entertainment revolution in India. The makers of AIB should make a come-back and roast some more celebrities, including Aamir Khan.
2 Comments
Roast does not mean talking of raping a woman in front of twenty men and talking is sexually abusive way about someone’s sister. That is what the roast did. And these people had not even signed up for the roast. I can understand with their level of the author to think that these are jokes…theycan share that with like minded people…but please don’t sexually abuse a celebrity’s mother and sister in name of entertainment, specially if they have not signed-up for it.
“PK”, “Three Idiots” and “Delhi Belly” are three of the worst movies ever in the annals of Indian cinema. They are written by imbecile writers whose writing is in the same caliber as a juvenile delinquent and acted out by the most retarded of the male acting species. The mass appeal of these kind of movies, is reflective of the decadence of the culture and change of guard to a class of cheap producers, in an industry, that had dedicated film makers the likes of Bimal Roy, Mehboob Khan, Raj Kapoor and Hrishikesh Mukherjee, to name a few. To use Samuel Goldwyn eupherism, if they “were alive today they will be turning in their graves” at the celluloid trash produced in the name of the movies.