Last year, around this time, Ranveer Allahabadia, resplendent in a deep blue achkan stood at an official government function in Delhi. He would receive from the Prime Minister of India a newly-instituted award – ‘Disruptor of the Year’. That award is a joke by itself but let’s not get distracted. Bigger jokes are on their way. As we were saying, there Ranveer stood. Young and handsome, with a hairstyle that went well with his fine features, he was the poster boy of the social influencers. In the small talk that followed, the prime minister apparently referred to a feature Ranveer had done on sleep deprivation. Ironically, it’s today that Ranveer would be an authority on sleeplessness. He is incommunicado, being hounded by the media, his legion of followers is in disarray and the law is after him from places as far apart as Mumbai and Gauhati.
How and where did things go so wrong? The answers are jokes. Or rather, a particular joke that blew up in his face. Allahabadia was on a panel of light-weight judges expected to ask contestants some fun questions. All the questions are supposed to be borderline vulgar (after all this is not the Bornvita Quiz Contest) The questions that Allahabadia asked involved sex, incest and parents. It was uncouth, un-funny and, worst of all, un-original (lifted from an Australian talk show). Everyone laughed, but that’s not saying much. The audience laughs at everything.
If you ask me, that’s where the fault lies – in the environment rather than the individual, the platform rather than the participants. Until last week, Ranveer was the decent, social media influencer next door, who had studied at a non-descript engineering college in suburban Mumbai and then made a momentous career shift. His shows became popular because of his boyish good looks and his ability to identify himself with the young. He had six YouTube channels and seven million online followers. Featuring on his show gives you zillions of ‘likes’.
He has met cricketers – the interview with Yuvraj Singh was brilliant as it explored the fraught relationship with M.S. Dhoni. He has met brand guru Kiran Khalap whom he wouldn’t dare joke with. He also had a regular series with historians. In most of these interviews, no probing questions are asked and no fresh ground is covered. Instead, Ranveer plays the wonderstruck pupil to his celebrity guests. He is the teacher’s pet who sits on the front bench and makes his adulation obvious. It was a formula that worked time after time (he now has a net worth in excess of Rs 60 crore), and would have continued to work had he not bitten into the forbidden fruit of comedy.
But he forgot that in today’s age of stand-ups, the fruit has been hollowed out by worms. We still call it ‘comedy’ because we do have not another single word for it. It’s actually an assembly of obscene sentences put together, with expletives thrown in for shock value. We laugh because everyone around seems to be doing it and we don’t want to be seen as a prig. The un-discerning audience, the over-anxious participants, eager celebrities and the ‘youth’ brands which associate themselves with this have all contributed to building an entire ecosystem of inanity.
Ranveer slipped on the peel of social acceptability and fell head-first into a sewage pit. Splash! He will take some time cleaning himself. Now, conspiracy theorists abound who say he is part of some deep-seated plan to undermine our noble society. I doubt it. He doesn’t have the head for it. What he said was pure, unmotivated filth. But filth is not fun and Ranveer’s education is incomplete if he cannot tell the difference. So, as a punitive and curative measure, I vote that Ranveer Allahabadia be made to listen to his own jokes and those of fellow stand-up comedians continuously for a year. That should be punishment enough.
