WTF Wednesday: Boycott of The Kapil Sharma Show over Kiku Sharda mimicking Arnab Goswami makes us wonder how much is ‘too much’ for the audience to take a joke?

They say that comedians are immune to haters and cite their humour as the reason. But how true can it be in a diversely populated country like India? It might still take some decades since most Indians are still trying to understand humour and are learning to take a joke with a pinch of salt. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that India was introduced to stand-up comedy in 2005 when comedians across the country were given a platform to make people laugh, be it with humour or satire. As an audience, we witnessed a variety of comic acts that not only made us roll on the floor, but also showed the dark side of society through a satirical lens.

So, you may wonder when did the Indian audience become so intolerant toward acts of satire. The reason might just be very simple. It could be the immense power that comedians hold to emerge as the most powerful oppositional voice.

There’s no denying that comedians do take a lot of liberty while taking a swipe at current affairs, public figures, the shortcomings of the ruling government or politicians who vomit garbage on public platforms. But the jibes are mostly satirical in nature and meant to make people aware of the injustice that’s happening around them in a humorous way. But people couldn’t tolerate a harmless comic act about a prime-time, news-shouting journalist, Arnab Goswami, performed by Kiku Sharda, on The Kapil Sharma Show, which dared to mirror/roast the ongoing unrest in the country.

Kiku made fun of Goswami by mimicking his despicable ways of reporting, or should we just say, sensationalising the death of Sushant Singh Rajput for boosting his channel’s TRP. From not letting his guests speak by continuously asking them to speak up to impersonating his act of ‘mujhe drug do’ during a debate, Kiku pulled off the difficult comic act to the T. However, fans of Goswami and those who are blinded by the journalist’s narrative of truth, began their social media campaign to shut the show down.

Now such incidents make us wonder whether we actually live in the largest democracy in the world, when people don’t even know how to take constructive criticism in their stride. This is not the first instance and it won’t be the last one either until people learn to take criticism in a positive way or develop a tough skin.

It looks like, we have a long way to go to find out how much is “too much” or “too little” for us to take a joke. Until then, let’s start making a habit to laugh a lot at the jokes as well as at the person who is cracking them, and move on.

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