It is 26 October, a big day for All India Bakchod (AIB), the comedy collective which is recording its first television gig, On Air with AIB, a news comedy show produced by Star TV. AIB has never done television before; nor has it done news comedy.

It is a pleasant but sweaty October afternoon inside the artist’s room at Filmalaya studio in Mumbai and Tanmay Bhat is looking for a cigarette.

“Do you have one?"

No, man.

He gets up, walks out and promptly returns with a cigarette, prised between his lips. He then plonks himself on a chair, under the window air-conditioner, next to a strategically done modification of sorts in the window, where a cardboard cover has been tampered with to facilitate ventilation. Bhat lights the cigarette, takes a few drags and passes it to Ajay Nair, director at Only Much Louder (OML) Entertainment Pvt. Ltd, the agency that manages AIB.

Hey, how’s it going?

“Good, man," says Bhat, 27.

The artist room smells of cigarettes. There is an air of anticipation and nervous energy about it—random people keep moving in and out, peering inside and slamming the door. Someone comes in to announce that the costume is ready; another drops in to pick up something but decides to hang around a few extra seconds to check out what’s going on.

We’ve been chatting only a few minutes now, on what it is that AIB wants to achieve by doing news comedy. In that time, a lot has already happened.

Bhat has smoked a cigarette and is on to a second. The men in the room, us included, have criticized the last article written on AIB. “Trash. That was a disaster! You can’t trust a journalist," is the collective refrain. Gursimran Khamba has called Delhi to check on his parents. Social media is abuzz with updates, post the 7.5 magnitude earthquake in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan, tremors of which were felt in Delhi and Pakistan. His parents are fine.

But, then what about the joke on Pakistan? One that they were about to make on the show—on Nawaz Sharif facing the music from a section of his countrymen because he gave a speech in English at the United Nations General Assembly. A clear violation of Pakistan’s constitution. Can you believe that?

Sure. Pakistan can induce laugh gags, lots of them. But this may not be the best time to be taking a dig at the country, right? So, should the whole segment be dropped?

“Now it’s too late," shrugs Khamba.

Clearly it is. For it has taken AIB a while to get here—six months to be exact.

Everything took time: first, hiring people who can write; then, picking up topics, working on them and then agreeing on what works and what doesn’t; then three months of researching, writing and tweaking the script; writing it over and over again to make sentences edgy and funny; rehearsing it; then rehearsing it all over again; saying some parts out loud; making faces while doing it; working on the exact expression; and then back to writing and changing the script. Actually, the script continues to be in edit mode. It is just two hours before the show is supposed to be recorded and it’s still being tinkered with.

Everyone has run out of patience; and, after all of that, an earthquake hits Pakistan.

Drop the Pakistan segment? No way.

‘Edginess does not come from cuss words’

“We are all super stressed," says Bhat. “First episode, so we now know everything that we shouldn’t do. That’s the best you can expect. Doing good news comedy is difficult."

Yeah?

“Yeah. Good news content is difficult, irrespective of what medium you choose to go ahead with. There are some restrictions you have on TV, but I don’t think this is the show where you will see these restrictions. I know the biggest worry is, ‘Oh, you guys are not going to be cussy, etc’. But the edginess does not come from the cuss words. It comes from the kind of content that we are attempting in the show. In our heads, cuss words were never something that defined us."

“About two-thirds of our show today is about whistleblowers. I don’t think anyone would have thought that we would do jokes around whistleblowers in India. So when people ask us why we are doing TV, in my mind I say that it is because we get to talk about something like whistleblowers to a much larger audience, in a manner that we want to."

Any particular reason why something like this hasn’t been done?

Khamba chips in. “It has been attempted before, but not at the scale that we are doing," he says. “Even if we were to look at the concept, people did not do news comedy. The way they did it, the lack of live audience, the lack of scale, it felt like a very half-assed attempt."

Okay.

Bhat: “I think the last guy who did news comedy properly was (Shekhar Suman in) Movers & Shakers. Shekhar Suman used to do some great stuff there and I think he had a lot more freedom and he could get away with saying a lot of stuff. I remember Movers & Shakers had a live audience. But what kind of live audience you get is also an important thing to look at. (Comedian) Kapil Sharma also has a live audience, but they are being paid to sit there. Here we have invited our fans and they have no idea how things are going to go down. Most importantly, we don’t have to tell them to clap."

Khamba: “And if they don’t, it is going to be a bit awkward."

Yeah, Bhat chips in. “Yeah, so there are no prompts coming up asking them to laugh or something."

Sure. But, why whistleblowers?

Khamba: “During the process of ideation we had about 50 ideas. There were times when we had gone to about three-fourth of our research and then realized ‘F***, yeh baith nahi raha hai’ (It doesn’t work). Whistleblowers was one of those things that just worked. Like especially in the Vyapam scam when it happened. It had becoming a running joke when someone new died almost every day. But the understanding on it was very superficial. I remember looking at some of the stories and thinking, ‘But why is this happening?’ Then you would think that ‘India mein witness protection program nahi hai kya?’ (Doesn’t India have a witness protection law or scheme?) Like in all these Hollywood movies where people would disappear overnight with a new life…"

Bhat: “So when you watch the episode, the peg is not about whistleblowers in general. It is about why be good in India? There is no incentive for you to expose a scam and bring out the truth."

Khamba: “So, the challenge here is that you take something complex and break it down to make it accessible to a 15-16 year-old sitting somewhere watching the episode. But the challenge is very different in, say, something like pollution. As soon as you bring up a topic like pollution, people are already put off. The challenge then is to ensure how to make this interesting enough so that people give a f*** even though they have heard it a thousand times."

‘We do our best to inform and entertain’

Do you think younger people care at all? There is an overdose of news already…

Bhat: “We were just looking at how young people were following the elections online, and we can definitely say that if it is done in a medium they are interested in, this is the most engaged that young people have been about issues ever. Not always healthily."

“A lot of it is just abuse from both sides. But even there, they will be trying and learning more about the issue in the centre, even if it is to strengthen their argument. The ambition was never to change the mindset of people through this show. But we do our best to inform and entertain them in our way."

That AIB cannot change the mindset of people is perhaps true. But then, it is not for lack of trying.

Pointing out stuff that’s wrong with India, especially our apathetic attitude to issues afflicting us, has been the constant staple in AIB’s work. Take for instance, the group’s comic endeavour, just over the last couple of years:

—On Air with AIB: Ten episodes of news comedy. Starts with, whistleblowers, Pakistan, holocaust and Benjamin Netanyahu. Episode 2 is on firecrackers, Diwali and safety. Episode 3 on atrocities committed by policemen.

—Every Bollywood Party Song feat. Irrfan: Sexism and objectification of women in Bollywood.

—Save The Internet 2, Judgment Day: Activism for Net Neutrality.

—Unoffended: The ability of Indians to get offended by everything and anything. Also a satire on the country’s 9pm national conscience keeper Arnab Goswami.

—Honest Weddings (two parts): Ills of dowry.

—Save The Internet: Activism for Net Neutrality.

—The Times of Boobs: Objectification of women, lack of ethics in the media business.

—Rape-It’s your fault: Rape and satire on the oft used refrain that, if it’s rape, then it must have been the woman’s fault.

You see that. Everything has a moral or a message, mixed with sarcasm.

And if you are thinking that the AIB way of sermonizing, through comedy, hasn’t caught on, you couldn’t be more wrong. Each of the videos mentioned above has been watched more than five million times. Some went on to garner 10 million views. AIB has 1.17 million followers on Twitter. Its Facebook page has close to 1.7 million likes. On YouTube, the group has more than 1.4 million subscribers. These videos have drawn people out to comment, applaud and outrage.

Numbers don’t lie. They only add up to tell the full story—that in just two years, AIB has become a national phenomenon. It is incredible how this group of four people—Tanmay Bhat, Gursimran Khamba (29), Rohan Joshi (32) and Ashish Shakya (30)—has got the pulse of the country (or at least a small and very voluble part of it) in popular culture, politics, Bollywood and media.

In this very short time, AIB has found itself on TV shows, on 9pm harangue debates, on billboards, in bars, at music festivals, at stand-up comedy events, at corporate getaways, at a police station…well, it will suffice to say that the foursome has come a long way. Because till just about a few years back, few people had heard of AIB. Mention the name and it would get a curious reaction: ‘AIB? WTF does Bakchod even mean?

It means senseless f****r. A person who indulges in Bakchodi or senseless talk.

If you are thinking about how the name came about, or how four individuals who didn’t know each other from Adam came together to form AIB, read on.

‘I performed for four minutes on stage in deathly silence’

Rohan Joshi doesn’t mince words. There was a time when nobody really found him funny. Okay, that’s too harsh. Some people did, but there weren’t enough of them.

The year is 2011. And Joshi is trying hard to hit it big time. Now, usually a stand-up comic works on material that’s about four minutes long or thereabouts. You get on stage, rattle off the jokes and out. That’s beginner-level stuff, and that’s where Joshi was. Which is when a friend reached out to him with an offer—there’s a DJ award gig happening at Blue Frog (a really hip restaurant in Lower Parel, Mumbai). Would Joshi be interested? Yes. Of course, yes.

Done. So Joshi is asked to report at 5pm. A DJ award gig at 5pm? Ummmm…he should know better, but anyway, next up, the security guard at Blue Frog, won’t let him through. After sizing Joshi up, the guard goes:

“Kidhar jaana hai?" (Where do you have to go?)

“Main perform karne aya hoon show mein." (I have come to perform at the show.)

A few embarrassing moments later, Joshi gets in. Only to realize it is nothing like the DJ award night he had imagined in his head. There is no Nikhil Chinnappa or any of the big DJs. It is just a random event full of random musician folks. But a man’s got to do, what a man’s got to do. So, Joshi gets down to work. He walks up to his friend and tells him that once the music starts to play, the crowd won’t give a damn about a stand-up comic. The friend is like: sure thing, you go second.

Okay.

The first act begins and some beat-boxers rock the hell out of the crowd. It is on its feet. The master of ceremonies walks up and he announces that the beat-boxers have won an award. Music plays. The beat-boxers get the trophy and the crowd is like, yeeahhh…clap, clap, clap, woot, woot. And, just then, the MC walks back up, there had been a mistake. The beat-boxers didn’t actually win an award, so they have to give the trophy back. Sorry. The crowd is like: WTF…booooo, booooo.

Next up, Rohan Joshi.

“I performed for four minutes on stage in deathly silence," says Joshi. “Then, I walked down, picked up my bag, and just kept walking so fast that I walked right out of Lower Parel."

The sun wasn’t exactly shining on the others.

At the time, Tanmay Bhat was making the rounds of Mumbai’s The Comedy Store, trying to promote himself as a stand-up comic. His day job was at Weirdass Comedy, stand-up comedian Vir Das’ comedy firm. Ashish Shakya was slumming it out being funny on paper—writing jokes for Cyrus Broacha’s show on CNN-IBN, called The Week that Wasn’t.

Gursimran Khamba had just moved to Mumbai from Delhi to study at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). His thing with stand-up comedy in the capital hadn’t really worked out, so he decided it would make a lot more sense to jump on a flight to Mumbai, the Mecca for all things stage.

So, how did the guys meet? Well, on Twitter, the micro-blogging platform.

Twitter.

Sometime in 2012, Bhat and Khamba, who knew each other on Twitter, decided to hang out. Khamba needed all the friends he could in the city. The duo hit it off and soon started a podcast. As fate would have it, the podcast worked, at least in the comedy scene. The guys were spontaneous, funny. Nothing was scripted. Anyhow, that’s how Joshi joined them. The group then started doing live events, at small venues in Mumbai. Soon enough, Shakya joined the group.

There you have it. The All India Bakchod.

‘Our first meeting was just me bursting their bubble’

By late 2012, AIB started getting popular in the stand-up scene; podcasts took a backseat. The guys now wanted to go live. On their own. Full house.

There was a little problem though. They didn’t know how.

Enter Vijay Nair, director and founder of Only Much Louder.

“I had obviously heard of these guys," says Vijay Nair. “Seen them at a show or two and podcasts. So Tanmay got in touch with me on Twitter one day saying that we want to do a show called Royal Turds. We need help. I said cool."

Bhat and Nair met over breakfast. The meeting was a disaster. That’s because 10 minutes into the meeting, Nair realized that he and the others had absolutely no idea how to go about a live show.

“They had not thought of anything," he says. “And our first meeting was just me bursting their bubble. They thought ‘Get an auditorium and everything else will happen’. They just booked the hall. But they hadn’t thought through (anything else); how were they going to get a licence? Sell tickets? So nothing."

The way Nair tells the story, he did see potential in the four. “So they were funny. They were trying to do something new," he says. “I manage lots of bands so I know what chemistry is like between people. And these guys were like a band where everybody has a role, and they are all lot more funnier collectively than as individuals. For me, it was (like) signing on a band which didn’t sing."

They didn’t need to. Royal Turds got off to a good start. But Nair wanted more. And trust managers to feel that way. He wanted AIB to do videos and release them on YouTube. He remembers that time particularly well—more so because none of the guys were keen to do it. They went, ‘We are comedians, and all we know is stand-up comedy. We can’t do videos.’"

After much cajoling, the guys agreed.

The first few videos flopped. Big time. And flop in the sense that nobody really cared. “Yeah, I remember the first thing was Tarla Dalal Breaking Bad. It didn’t do well," says Nair. “That is because Breaking Bad wasn’t the mass phenomenon; so unless you know Breaking Bad, this would make no sense to you, right? You will be like what the hell is going on, but if you knew Breaking Bad, then you would get the pop culture references. I like that sort of abstract sense of humour. So, that didn’t deter me."

And the next thing you know, in late 2013, AIB became the talk of the town—with the Rape: It’s My Fault video shot with Kalki Koechlin. That video got more than 10 million views. In two weeks.

And after that, there was no looking back. For a year or so, everything was going swimmingly well. And then something happened. Something, not quite expected.

Take a moment to think this over: when was the last time, someone called to say that if you don’t take down a video, they’ll burn your house down?

Yes. That happened. Of course, this is the part which is not very well known. What’s well-known is that AIB did the Roast with a few Bollywood celebrities. The show was sold out. When AIB released the edited version on YouTube, it broke the Internet—10 million views in four days. And then a few people got pissed off—so much cussing on stage, dick jokes, celebrities who know better and are supposed to be role models, endorsing it all.

Egos were offended, First Investigation Reports (FIRs) were filed, posters were burnt and threats were issued. AIB protested. But outrage doesn’t listen. It just gets stronger, as more and more people start outraging. AIB took down the video. And then for a long while, they just went quiet.

This part is called AIB, after the Roast.

‘Who the f*** are you to decide that it did not go down well?’

It is 6 July. About 6.30pm. About five months after the Roast video went online. In the living room, it is just us and Bhat at AIB’s office in Andheri.

Bhat is on the saggy couch, with a packet of cigarettes, an ashtray and his asthma inhaler. The two of us are on the floor. We’ve been chatting for a while now—on AIB’s journey, what holds the group together, popularity and everything else under the sun. Bhat has been doing most of the talking. He is usually distracted with something or the other but, right now, he is in a thoughtful place.

“Sometimes the amount of attention that comes to our side, I hate it," he says. “The other three are not bothered. I am the most obsessed about what people are saying about us. It is a terrible habit. I have become much better now, but earlier, I used to go through every comment that people used to make on our video. I would search our name on Twitter and see what people are saying about us."

“It is a dichotomy, right? The reason we did this was to get more people to see us, and as many people see us, that many opinions will arise and that should be fine. The other guys are very good with that. They just shut off saying that we got to do what we have got to. I am getting better, but I am still the worst among us."

“Twitter for all of us is ruined. All four of us are way less active these days. I was a little active today, and now I don’t want to look at my mentions tab. Everything is hateful. We started out as those guys who could say anything about a big guy and get away with it because we thought we were invisible to them. But now that we are the ones facing it, I understand that people don’t realize that there are people on the other end reading all these comments. I face abuse all the time and now it has become second nature to me. Sometimes my girlfriend would look at my twitter profile and her night is ruined. I just tell her that now it is normal for me, it doesn’t even matter any more."

Yeah, a lot would have changed after the Roast…

“After the Roast (video), in the first 20-25 days we thought we had aged by a year or two. We had a ‘going to jail’ WhatsApp group and we would just be making jokes on that. Long ago, we made a video on a similar theme. So when we started putting out newer videos, we had taken down some of our old stuff. But after the Roast, someone uploaded this video again and said that we had predicted what happened. We thought what the f*** was happening, we were just making some jokes."

“The Roast was a big thing for all of us. Sometimes, I read these articles where someone would write that it did not go down well with the audience and I am like ‘Who the f*** are you to decide that it did not go down well?’ If it wasn’t great, 10 million people wouldn’t watch it in four days. The fact that so many people watched it means it did well. Just the like to dislike ratio on the Roast video, which, by the way, is the most democratic way of looking at these things, is 90:10 which is pretty high. Even on the streets the reviews have always been positive. Nobody comes to us and says that they liked it; what they say is that we are changing the scene. Which I think is great because people are like ‘We stand by you!’ and all that. I just have to say that nothing has happened to us. I am just trying to eating dinner at Indigo; you don’t have to stand by me while I am eating."

‘F**k! We actually managed to do this in India’

“People just coming up to us and saying ‘Don’t get banned!’. This was something that got associated with us and it was really weird because we never got banned. They think we got banned or censored. None of that happened. We took the video down ourselves. It is terrible because investors are looking at us thinking that we are going to get banned someday. People are not going to want to fund us so please stop spreading this thing that we are banned or something."

“The good thing is that the shelf life of these things is very small and people just forget it in three months. So that is good for us. The only thing that actually happened was that we are all very outspoken people; unlike other comics, we actually put our neck out and said things, so there was this negative perception about us and a lot of hate came to us that way. We come across as educated guys from well-to-do families and a lot of opinions. There was this ‘bigade hue baap ke bete‘ (spoilt brats) type perception. Earlier we used to try and grapple with that but now I think there is no point. Once people have made up their mind, they have made up their mind."

It will be fair to say that several people have opinion on the roast, good and bad; but the story there is fairly simple. For AIB, it was like; this will be the most awesome thing to do as comedians. Like how it is in the West. Followed by questions: Can it be done in India? Will movie stars agree to it? Once AIB figured that a few celebrities were keen to do it, there was no going back.

Ranveer Singh agreed because he thought it would be a cultural landmark. Karan Johar, because he hadn’t done anything like this before. Everything fell in place and then AIB started writing the script and jokes. And right from day one, they were clear; it wasn’t going to be tame. Otherwise, what’s the point?

“We thought there would be some issues but didn’t realize it would be this big," says Bhat. “Only we know the effort that went to mount something of this scale. Not just writing it, we dedicated two months of our lives in to making this happen. Also, as comedians it was a bigger high for us. ‘F***! We actually managed to do this in India. Two mainstream movie stars, one of the most mainstream directors agreed to be part of the roast’. For us it was a major moment. We rehearsed and worked hard to ensure that everyone remembered the lines. Then, on the day of the show, we walked onto the stage and that is when it hit me that ‘That is 4,000 people sitting in front of us.’"

“Then Karan (Johar) got the introduction and he came up on stage. He did his first three jokes and those got really long applause breaks. I noticed that Khamba was sitting on my left, and I said to him that ‘This one is going to kill!’ Karan was amazing at his lines and was improvising. Then we introduced Ranveer and Arjun (Kapoor), and then Ranveer came up and kissed Karan. We were just sitting there thinking ‘This is actually happening here. It was huge.’"

“We showed the recording of the roast to a lot of people for 10 days before we put it up. I am a compulsive tester. Before every sketch, I test the video with a lot of people and make them fill out a questionnaire to find out what they liked about the video. When we tested the Roast, at no point did anyone say that this was too much for them to digest or that we should not put it out. In fact, the one thing that people told us repeatedly was that ‘I can’t believe this happened in India!’. So naturally, we were very excited."

Needless to say, the video broke the Internet. And then, it became a full-blown controversy.

‘Sometimes I feel that this country does not deserve anything fun at all’

“The volume of the backlash came as a major surprise," says Bhat. “Really? Is it really a big deal that a bunch of people made dick jokes on stage? I really didn’t think it would be 9pm news. I remember that there was a channel which called us ‘Desh Ke Kalank’ (blot on the country) three days after the video came out. Our faces were being shown on air and then the producer of the show called me up while the show was going on. I said, ‘Main aapka channel dekh raha hoon, aap mujhe desh ka kalank bulaa rahe hain. Main kyu baat karunga aap se?’ (If you have already made up your mind, what is the point? You are calling me for me to defend myself which I don’t want to do) Then they took that clip and ran it on air saying ‘Tanmay Bhat sharma gaye. Humse baat nahi karna chahte’ (Tanmay Bhat is embarrassed. He doesn’t want to talk to us)."

“There was this clear divide between the Hindi media and the English media. The vibe you got from the English media was that; why should they be penalized for doing something like this? While Hindi channels were just catering to their audience and being a lot more conservative. So many people there wanted to kill us or hang us. And I thought, really? You want to kill us for saying ‘f***’ on stage?"

“The first week was hell for everyone. You have to realize that from the outside we look like some Bollywood darlings, well connected people. The fact is, we are not. For us to go to a police station and give a statement was a massive deal. We all have middle-class parents, who were just losing their minds at what we were going through at that time."

Bhat goes on: “The first 10 days or so we barely slept; all sitting in a room and wondering what would happen. I remember that when that video had first came out on a TV channel and they had broken the story that the government was investigating us, I got about 100 calls and I had to switch off the phone because the journalist wouldn’t stop harassing us. We had to pass by news channel buildings while looking down because we were worried that someone would see us. I realize that I am making it sound like we had cancer or something. No, we were alright. Just that we were a little stressed, that’s it."

But, would you do it again?

“Hell yes! Would I do it in India? I don’t know," Bhat says.

“Sometimes I feel that this country does not deserve anything fun at all. We have this weird mentality that if I don’t like something, no one should like it. That is a terrible attitude to have. I don’t think a movie like Grand Masti is great. But I would never say that it does not deserve a release. That is bullshit. If you don’t like it, then just move on. There is a market for it with someone else. But in India, the basics of market economics doesn’t make any sense."

“We are still ready to risk it and do it again. But the question is, would movie stars agree to do it now? Who would come next? We aren’t even thinking of a new roast right now. But the idea is to do it again. If you don’t try, then that means you have essentially cowered down. Which means they won. There is no point in not trying."

“We believe in absolute freedom of speech but you cannot have it in this country. When we took down the roast video we had a lot of people calling us cowards. All I can say is ‘f*** you!’ You see this dude getting burned for a Facebook post. Do you really think that is the road we want to go down on? We realize it (absolute freedom) is difficult to have, but we should aspire for it. That is the way. Our case is still in court."

True. The suit is still in the court. But, it’s been a while. Nine months to be exact. There’s a lot of water under the bridge.

So much so that back at Filmalaya studio, only a few people remember the Roast. Those who do, prefer not to talk about it. Mention it to any of the AIB folks and they will go, “F*** man, not that again. That’s history." It is. Except, it is an important bit of history; one, which played a role in making AIB a household name. Folks who cussed and made dick jokes on stage with Bollywood celebrities and got away with it. Respect. What balls!

Another matter altogether that now AIB is out to prove that the group is not just about dick jokes and cussing. But a lot more—where it can discuss serious stuff, perhaps make people sit up and take notice, feel the apathy of some of the issues afflicting the country and still make the whole thing entertaining.

Of course, this is easier said than done.

‘Since this is going on TV, how much has it limited you?’

Back at Filmalaya, it is close to 5pm. The studio is all set. Rehearsals have been done. By all four. Joshi and Shakya, in English. And Bhat and Khamba, in Hindi. There were a few glitches, but now it seems everything is in control. The lights are working fine. The script too is loading okay on the teleprompter, and the graphics, which will accompany the jokes, are behaving well.

Down on the ground floor, the audience of AIB fans has arrived. Some 150-odd young men and women, pre-selected, trained to clap when the camera starts rolling, at the cue when the music comes on. Told to clap, if they like the jokes. Or if they don’t. Told, in the way that it sounds funny, not forced.

Sharp at 5: 30pm, the kids make a beeline inside the studio. One by one, they take their seats—taller folks, out of the camera’s path, shorter people in the front rows.

At 5.45, the four walk in. They thank the audience. Crack a few jokes, on laughter and clapping. Rules of the house. The audience is excited; there are claps and cheers. Soon enough, it’s time to begin the taping.

Bhat and Khamba take their seats on the stage. Lights ok. Sound ok. Camera, rolling…the rap song starts.

“Desh ke haalat bahut hi funny hai…" (What’s happening in India, is really funny)

And so it begins, AIB’s first TV show. For the next 30 minutes, Bhat and Khamba rattle through their list of issues and jokes—whistleblowers and why be good, Vyapam, corruption, Benjamin Netanyahu and the holocaust, Right to Information Act, and Abish Mathew, another comic appearing in a pre-recorded video, interviewing a guy who’s entered the Limca Book of World Records for losing the maximum number of elections in India. He is the epic loser—Election King! The duo signs off.

Rap music comes on again and the crowd starts clapping. In sync with the beats. Slowly the music fades off. Same with the claps and the cheering. Lights come on. The show is over.

Bhat starts off: “How’s it going guuuyyyys?"

“Gooood," the crowd replies.

“Which is your favourite bit in the show?"

The crowd goes “Crocin. Crocin. Crocin."

“Whaaat? Where was that?"

Oh. It was there. In the Vyapam segment—stressing on the breed of quacks going around in Madhya Pradesh. This bit:

‘Patient: Doctor, doctor, I have fever.

Doctor: Take a Crocin…

Patient: Doctor, my hand has been sawed off.

Doctor: Ummmm…take a Crocin.

Patient: Doctor, doctor. Both my hands have been sawed off…

Doctor: Ummmm…(deep in thought), yeah, how will you take Crocin now?’

Right. Anyway, the show isn’t over yet. Retakes need to be done. Ten in all. There’s time to kill but the audience needs to be kept engaged. It would be really weird no, 150 people staring in silence, while two comics on stage are busy repeating lines…

So, Bhat pushes the crowd to ask questions.

“Alright, we just realized that we didn’t think of what to say at this awkward moment. Does anybody have any question or general comments?"

Not a single hand comes up.

“No. No! Wow, by the way that was very educational."

He pesters. “Whaaaaat? No questions?"

A few weird moments later, a hand comes up, a girl who wants to know how the AIB folks convinced their parents to let them do comedy. That’s easy. Bhat’s parents are in the audience. His mother gets up. The crowd applauds.

“They were also at the Roast," adds Bhat. Okay, any other question. Another hand goes up, right at the back of the room.

“Since this is going on TV, how much has it limited you?"

Bhat: “See this is a web show that happens to go on TV. So there are no restrictions…"

Khamba cuts him off. “See, this is a trick question. If we don’t cuss, then you are saying that we are holding back. If we cuss, then you say that these guys can’t do clean comedy."

Nobody applauds. Nobody cheers. The show goes on.

Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.

Share Via