Two days after the All India Bakchod comedy collective decided to pull a video of their controversial "roast" off the internet, Jaideep Varma’s documentary survey of Indian stand-up comedy has become available for free viewing on YouTube. It is called, most appropriately, I Am Offended.
It couldn’t have happened any other way, given the frank and occasionally profane interviews and excerpts that animate the narrative. The Central Board of Film Certification might have taken the title literally and, rather than issuing an Adults only certificate, press the mute button on swear words and irreverent references to politicians, film stars, cricketers, religious leaders and all kinds of public figures.
But that is the point of the 102-minute film. Comedy, especially of the stand-up variety, has emerged as an important challenge to the notorious Indian tendency towards hyper-sensitivity – as AIB realised. But they aren't alone. Varma finds an astonishing breadth of comedians who are working hard on lampooning Indian attitudes, conventions and foibles. He unearths a scene that is as rich as it is raucous. It comprises men and women, multiple media (the internet, cartooning, television, live shows), and a range of approaches and forms. Some are loud and explicit, others are subtle and oblique.
All of them, in lyricist and satirist Varun Grover’s words, are creating “a space for resistance”, where even so-called juvenile jokes are contributing to a “censorship-free space where the unsaid can be said”.
New series
Varma’s latest film, which follows from his documentaries Leaving Home, about the band Indian Ocean, and Baawra Mann, on filmmaker Sudhir Mishra’s cinema, will inaugurate Originals, a new section that has been added to the Being Indian platform on YouTube. “Comedy and entertainment are the two most popular genres on the internet,” said Sameer Pitalwalla, the co-founder of Culture Machine, the company that runs the YouTube channel. Culture Machine also manages some of the comedians featured in the film, including Aditi Mittal and the group Shitzengiggles. “The documentary fits in with what we do, especially since the stand-up comedy scene has come of age on the internet,” Pitalwalla said.
I Am Offended finds comedians working in Hindi, English and even Marathi, such as Raju Srivastav, who became a television star through his skits on The Great Indian Laughter Challenge, and writer-performers such as Sanjay Rajoura, who creates material in Hindi. Although the documentary’s focus is on stand-up comedy, Varma attempts to create a historical framework by looking at satirical newspaper columns and cartoons and the tradition of humourous Hindi poetry. The film captures the different stages of evolution for the scene – some of it is at the level of jokes, others take the form of anecdotes and stories aimed at critiquing Indian realities.
“The film happened because I shot some footage for a stand-up comic friend of mine, Andy Zaltzman, who was visiting India,” Varma said. “[Gursimran] Khamba, Tanmay [Bhat] and Aditi [Mittal] performed with him and I loved their cutting edge politically incorrect humour, and thought they were doing stuff here that no one can do in any other (public) medium in India. Then, I got lucky, because someone I didn’t know at the time offered to put some money into it and then a friend offered. I put in some of my own and made it.”
Freedom versus money
The documentary was shot between November 2012 and October the following year. “I always knew I wanted it to be a larger picture on Indian humour and India in general, but the specific stuff was never set,” Varma said. “The honest truth also is, this was a hobby film for me. I was working full time on something else, and there was only a certain amount of time and energy I was willing to put into this. Within that, this got made.” The vitality and diversity of the scene took him, as it might many viewers, by surprise. The roster of talent featured in I Am Offended is lengthy– among those interviewed and featured are Vir Das, Abhigyan Jha, Neeti Palta, Rajeev Nigam, Rajneesh Kapoor, Abhigyan Jha, Kunal Vijaykar, Cyrus Broacha, Papa CJ, Ashish Shakya, Rohan Joshi and Anuvab Pal.
Varma weaves into the interviews various questions that arise out of the evolution of the comedy market. Is there such a thing as English versus Hindi comedy? Are English audiences more evolved and more liberal about outspoken and risqué humour? (The broad answer to both questions seems to be yes.) And what happens when the court jester is invited to sit besides the king? Corporate sponsorship and television work might allow comedians to earn a living, but does it also muzzle their collective voice and invite censure and censorship? (Again, the answer leans towards the affirmative.)
Opinion on these matters is as varied as the scene itself. Raju Shrivasta says he talks about “Indian traditions and practices” and practises “comedy within the confines of our culture”. Khamba, a member of the comedy collective All India Bakchod, points out that English comedians are “upper middle class people with cultural capital” who have the licence to get closer to the edge than Hindi comedians.
The internet has contributed immensely to the growth of such comedy platforms as All India Bakchod and Jay Hind!, but the threat of censorship looms large even in the seemingly limitless web world. “The real test will be when it [Indian comedy] is big enough to come in the way of the establishment in some way and how it deals with it,” Varma said. “Corporate sponsorship goes to cool and flavour-of-the-month acts, and stand-up is that today. Hopefully it will just grow from strength to strength. Corporate shows do not have to be the standard by which we judge comedy, so I don't think that is an issue at all.”
It couldn’t have happened any other way, given the frank and occasionally profane interviews and excerpts that animate the narrative. The Central Board of Film Certification might have taken the title literally and, rather than issuing an Adults only certificate, press the mute button on swear words and irreverent references to politicians, film stars, cricketers, religious leaders and all kinds of public figures.
But that is the point of the 102-minute film. Comedy, especially of the stand-up variety, has emerged as an important challenge to the notorious Indian tendency towards hyper-sensitivity – as AIB realised. But they aren't alone. Varma finds an astonishing breadth of comedians who are working hard on lampooning Indian attitudes, conventions and foibles. He unearths a scene that is as rich as it is raucous. It comprises men and women, multiple media (the internet, cartooning, television, live shows), and a range of approaches and forms. Some are loud and explicit, others are subtle and oblique.
All of them, in lyricist and satirist Varun Grover’s words, are creating “a space for resistance”, where even so-called juvenile jokes are contributing to a “censorship-free space where the unsaid can be said”.
New series
Varma’s latest film, which follows from his documentaries Leaving Home, about the band Indian Ocean, and Baawra Mann, on filmmaker Sudhir Mishra’s cinema, will inaugurate Originals, a new section that has been added to the Being Indian platform on YouTube. “Comedy and entertainment are the two most popular genres on the internet,” said Sameer Pitalwalla, the co-founder of Culture Machine, the company that runs the YouTube channel. Culture Machine also manages some of the comedians featured in the film, including Aditi Mittal and the group Shitzengiggles. “The documentary fits in with what we do, especially since the stand-up comedy scene has come of age on the internet,” Pitalwalla said.
I Am Offended finds comedians working in Hindi, English and even Marathi, such as Raju Srivastav, who became a television star through his skits on The Great Indian Laughter Challenge, and writer-performers such as Sanjay Rajoura, who creates material in Hindi. Although the documentary’s focus is on stand-up comedy, Varma attempts to create a historical framework by looking at satirical newspaper columns and cartoons and the tradition of humourous Hindi poetry. The film captures the different stages of evolution for the scene – some of it is at the level of jokes, others take the form of anecdotes and stories aimed at critiquing Indian realities.
“The film happened because I shot some footage for a stand-up comic friend of mine, Andy Zaltzman, who was visiting India,” Varma said. “[Gursimran] Khamba, Tanmay [Bhat] and Aditi [Mittal] performed with him and I loved their cutting edge politically incorrect humour, and thought they were doing stuff here that no one can do in any other (public) medium in India. Then, I got lucky, because someone I didn’t know at the time offered to put some money into it and then a friend offered. I put in some of my own and made it.”
Freedom versus money
The documentary was shot between November 2012 and October the following year. “I always knew I wanted it to be a larger picture on Indian humour and India in general, but the specific stuff was never set,” Varma said. “The honest truth also is, this was a hobby film for me. I was working full time on something else, and there was only a certain amount of time and energy I was willing to put into this. Within that, this got made.” The vitality and diversity of the scene took him, as it might many viewers, by surprise. The roster of talent featured in I Am Offended is lengthy– among those interviewed and featured are Vir Das, Abhigyan Jha, Neeti Palta, Rajeev Nigam, Rajneesh Kapoor, Abhigyan Jha, Kunal Vijaykar, Cyrus Broacha, Papa CJ, Ashish Shakya, Rohan Joshi and Anuvab Pal.
Varma weaves into the interviews various questions that arise out of the evolution of the comedy market. Is there such a thing as English versus Hindi comedy? Are English audiences more evolved and more liberal about outspoken and risqué humour? (The broad answer to both questions seems to be yes.) And what happens when the court jester is invited to sit besides the king? Corporate sponsorship and television work might allow comedians to earn a living, but does it also muzzle their collective voice and invite censure and censorship? (Again, the answer leans towards the affirmative.)
Opinion on these matters is as varied as the scene itself. Raju Shrivasta says he talks about “Indian traditions and practices” and practises “comedy within the confines of our culture”. Khamba, a member of the comedy collective All India Bakchod, points out that English comedians are “upper middle class people with cultural capital” who have the licence to get closer to the edge than Hindi comedians.
The internet has contributed immensely to the growth of such comedy platforms as All India Bakchod and Jay Hind!, but the threat of censorship looms large even in the seemingly limitless web world. “The real test will be when it [Indian comedy] is big enough to come in the way of the establishment in some way and how it deals with it,” Varma said. “Corporate sponsorship goes to cool and flavour-of-the-month acts, and stand-up is that today. Hopefully it will just grow from strength to strength. Corporate shows do not have to be the standard by which we judge comedy, so I don't think that is an issue at all.”
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