The Biryani, Consent and Consequences

The internet has been abuzz since the last couple of days regarding the now-infamous Biryani episode. Although I was late to the entire ruckus, the disgust about it felt fresh and uncomfortable. The saying ‘jungle mein mor nacha kisne dekha’ gains more relevance than ever in today’s time of social media. Content creation without visibility means a death nail in a creator’s career. Grabbing eyeballs in this extremely competitive environment by resorting to cheap and vulgar tactics (remember Samay Raina’s incident?) is easier and quicker. Can we, as an audience, allow them this leeway though?

Stand-up comedy is quite popular amongst youngsters. YouTube and Instagram are thronged with stand-up comics who put up their best and well-received gigs to gain followers and reach. I’m not expecting them to be morally upright and always take the high road. It’s debatable and I’ll let that slide. What matters, however, is what they do with the platform and what kind of audience they attract. Honestly, was only the boasting biryani guy to be blamed? What about the people who laughed, cheered and supported him?

Imagine being in the girl’s shoes. Was she not aware of his intentions? Did she consider paying for her half of the biryani and leave? Was her consent asked or implied? Did she realise that she was bargaining her reputation and making herself a butt of inappropriate jokes? Would the guy flaunt his exploits if he knew it would blow up? Why was he being instigated to go on? Too many questions and no answers. Just more dread and confusion. Is this new or this behaviour has been normalised too often in our society?

Few days ago I was watching Darr (for Juhi and the songs!) and A Jr joined me for a while. “This is creepy stalker behaviour. How can you even like this?” he burst out. Considering that I have fond memories of humming those songs with my friends in school breaks, I was personally offended. However, I couldn’t deny the fact that behind those beautiful melodies and stunning Swiss Alps lay the disturbing story of a seriously troubled boy who traumatised a married woman, murdered policemen and tried to kill her husband. Why was her consent taken for granted? How could I slide past that? Was it good filmmaking or did movies skew our moral compass?

I’m a fan of stand-up comedy even though I have a bone to pick with some comics about their embarrassingly colourful language. Crowd work is a great way to connect with the audience and is frequently adopted as fillers and for breathers. It’s interactive, fun to watch and provides fodder for content as well. I bet no one expected it to go south this way. There’s another clip of a girl going viral, again for the wrong reason. Last I heard, the biryani guy was fired from his job since his company received incessant negative and hate comments on his account.

Will there be any serious repercussions and will it preclude others from repeating it? The AIB Knockout roast with Ranveer Singh, Arjun Kapoor and Karan Johar was heavily criticised for its explicit content and the YouTube video was eventually taken down after a token apology. It was quite a scandal. Yet, here we are. Another day, another show, same confidence. Will there be a law in place to pull up such miscreants and be enforced when needed too? Freedom of speech cannot be absolute, after all.

Pranit More has deactivated his Instagram account. Is that enough? Would the public response be the same if it was a biryani girl instead? What do you think?

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Varsh

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