The Snapchat story created by the now-infamous comedian and AIB co-founder Tanmay Bhat has created quite a buzz in the county and received considerable news coverage for the past few days. Tanmay Bhat has been known in the past for making sick jokes on different public personalities.
Another interesting aspect is that Sachin Tendulkhar and Lata Mangeshkar who were at the receiving end of the jokes have not even reacted or even expressed their opinion. This who has been hurt and why is this heart-burn?
What surprised me the most is the irrational reaction that the video has received? What’s in the video that would make a normal Indian agitated that he is ready to kill or give death threats to Tanmay Bhat? The comedian made a video thinking it was funny but the outcome was not funny enough. So what? If you don’t like a video, you have more than 2.89 billion choices in Youtube.
The buzz around this video will fade away after all ‘it doesn’t pose any threat to our national security’ as quoted by Arnab Goswami when he held a debate on this issue in The Newshour.
Yeah, then there is the question of freedom of speech and expression but I think the constitution of India clearly states that this freedom should not be used to hurt someone verbally or in any other manner.
Humor is about striking a balance between cold, hard truth and varying doses of imagination or exaggeration.But many believe that in this video the balance was not met and that’s why many find it not funny.
Written by Salman Shiras, student of Sem II, MBA-FA 2015-17.
