Tanmay Bhat Wasn’t Funny, But It’s Not Your Business to File FIRs

Tanmay Bhat’s only offence is to have made a video that wasn’t funny.

Tanmay’s only offence was making an un-funny video. (Photo Courtesy: Facebook/Tanmay Bhat)

I am highly amused by politics and comedy trying to mix in India. Watching political figures on news shows debate the public reaction to an allegedly ‘funny incident’ is like trying to eat karela and chocolate cake at once. Distasteful for most, I reckon.

But I also find the particular Sachin Tendulkar vs Lata Mangeshkar post highly unfunny.

What on earth was Tanmay Bhat thinking!? There’s nothing in that video that’s worthy of being called humour – the Bakchods can do so much better.

Tanmay Bhat’s real offence here is that he has produced a highly pointless video that really did not make us laugh.

Before Google, YouTube, Facebook and the like made us naked to the world, we were a funny lot in the privacy of our homes. We rolled over laughing at dialogues by hack-humour-honchos in our movies. We imitated life at its CinemaScope best at house parties. And yes, we liberally poked fun at characters like Soorma Bhopali and Anthony Gonsalves. Namak Halal Engliss found a place in our mother tongue and we all laughed with great glee at how pathetic our ‘angrezi’ was.

But we talked our differences and we walked them.

The Funnier Times, Before We ‘Facebooked’

Perhaps our esteemed politicians in those days had their minds in deep pockets and had real issues like freedom and the economy to worry about. The Ministry of Morality didn’t actually exist.

Thank God I grew up in a free world.

It never occurred to me until I got ‘Facebooked’, that as members of an allegedly equal society, voicing the politically incorrect could result in such a viral political infection. So much so that we’d have a ‘viral’ at our throats within minutes of an utterance, trying to shut us up.

Dial 100 for a tweet you don’t agree with? Really?

Frankly, this particular SnapChat video doesn’t even deserve an ear. (Photo Courtesy: Facebook/Tanmay Bhat)

With mass media permeating public consciousness as wide and deep as it does today, any unwanted element can be easily targeted and ‘unnecessary’ things like dissent, honesty and even PDA can be taken care of with a political sound bite.

Yelling for the Chief Minister to give a matter of social opinion priority over matters involving life and death – and needing to evoke optical and audible public outrage – just to become a media story seems to be in vogue. Move over, social impact and political prowess. These days, it’s all about hoarse power.

Frankly, this particular SnapChat video doesn’t even deserve an ear. It’s a nothing and and we should have left it at that. But, no. We’ve screeched it into national awareness.

Like we have nothing more important to worry about.

Why We Need Our Satirists

So a guy called Tanmay Bhat spoofed an argument between two ‘hero-worshipped’ public figures. He offloaded and uploaded. Big deal. AIB is just a group of funny guys, trying to be relevant through their talent. No different from Shekhar Suman in Movers and Shakers, no different from Cyrus and Kunal in my favourite non-news news show.

I fail to see why Tanmay Bhat should be in the news at all. And yet we’re all engaging in this pointless debate. We have all been infected by the social media epidemic.

A satirist is as important for socio-political commentary as a self-praiseworthy news editor. Nothing wrong with either. They’re funny and they’re on the ball. We enjoy the fact that they disfigure political figures and question society. And that they see celebrities in a different shade of stardust.

Shri Kejriwal has grown into a household name – more because he is so widely spoofed than for his policies and measures of growth. (Photo Courtesy: Lijumol Joseph/The Quint)

Hence, ‘sorry’ works just fine and Shri Kejriwal has grown into a household name – more because he is so widely spoofed than for his policies and measures of growth.

Laughter and humour most certainly have their place in society and the vote bank.

But are you above satire and mimicry as soon as you have a Ratna, Vibhushan, Bhushan or a Shri attached to your name? Does government recognition render an honourable recipient above caricature? Is protecting the image of a public figure really only a parochial political privilege? Is this really a problem in Mumbai where Mr Fadnavis needs to intervene politically? Is this politics at all?

If anyone should legally object to the Tanmay Bhat video, it should only be the two icons featured in it. (Photo Courtesy: The Quint)

The film fraternity has every right to voice their opinions about the video on Ms Lata Mangeshkar – as does anyone who has a divergent opinion to share about Mr Sachin Tendulkar. But if anyone should legally object to the Tanmay Bhat video, it should only be the two icons featured in it. It is no one else’s business.

Your individual opinion is your own. Keep it for the house party.

After you’ve posted it on Facebook.

(The writer is a media professional.)