Three comedians got in trouble for making jokes about politicians. I watched all three sets. My first reaction was: where is the joke? But not everybody is a comedy police like me, so the real police was like, where is the comedian?
One comedian was in Prayagraj, so they tracked him down using mobile tower points, which makes me feel better because I thought this tech is only used in Crime Patrol. Too bad Vijay Mallya clearly doesn’t have an Indian SIM card. Otherwise he would have been brought to justice by now. They went by train, so the other passengers must have asked.
‘Why Prayagraj?’
‘We are making an arrest’.
‘For what crime?’
‘A criminal cracked a joke on someone we worship’.
‘Oh, so Section 295A, hurting religious sentiments, is a criminal offence?’
‘Yeah, but our god is god of fans only’.
‘But what was the joke?’
‘He just took his name’.
‘Oh. Thou shalt not take god’s name in vain’.
The second comedian was Muslim, so they didn’t bother with defamation and the IT Act. They went straight to love jihad. Easy day at work for someone.
By the time the third comedian got in trouble, the police gave up. ‘We can go to Prayagraj, but we won’t go into Bengaluru traffic’. So 3 fangoons, a new term I just coined, went to the comedian’s solo show and made it a panel show… India’s Gotten Insecure.
Now those guys have fans and followers in their village WhatsApp group. This could become a thing, like the paps situation in Mumbai. In future, comedians who want to get famous quickly will babble something about a star and call the fangoons themselves, then act surprised like Malaika Arora. How did you guys even know where I was? Oh, mobile tower tracking? It could become a win-win situation for everybody.
Offence doesn’t bother me anymore. Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars on live television. If the most elite, well-read room in the world can’t take a joke, I am not expecting the folks of Kakinada to be Buddha-like. But if I were the leader of fans, I would have just written ‘hasna tha kya?’, ‘still waiting for the joke’, ‘not funny’ in the comments section and slept in peace, knowing this troubles the comedian more. But fans have only emotion, no logic, and have learnt nothing from Munawar and Kamra. If you don’t like someone, don’t make them popular by spreading hate.
Other news folks wanted to know what I felt. I acted all saintly: ‘yeah, freedom of speech is important, you can’t arrest a comedian for a joke’. Inside, it felt like an IPL bowler defending a score of 70 in 120 balls.
Anyway, nothing is funny about an overreaction to a joke. You know what’s funny? Not laughing at those jokes. That’s the biggest punishment a comedian deserves. The rest is bonus. It’s like I made vada pav, but you didn’t eat it. Instead, you made a pillow out of it, and now you complain it smells like aloo. Makes no sense? Exactly my point.
Sandesh
@msgfromsandesh
(This comedian is here to tell funny stories about Hyderabad)
(The writer’s views are his own)
