How right the reaction of people over Tanmay Bhatt Video Is?

Comedians and troubles have a long history together. Quite often, these funnymen get into trouble and face a lot of criticism. Things, however, got a lot worse when Tanmay Bhatt decided to humour people by appointing Lata Mangeshkar and Sachin Tendulkar as characters. Everyone, these days, is obsessed with Snapchat filters but these filters landed Tanmay in a lot of legal issues.

Using face swapping filter, Bhatt swapped his face with these famous and well-reputed celebrities. One is the God of cricket while the other is a phenomenon singer respected by all. As predicted, people took it in a negative way and slammed the co-producer of AIB for not understanding the difference between humour and insult.

Interestingly, the film industry did not completely support the legends, as they are famously known. Some of them came forward and supported Tanmay Bhatt, instead. Sonam Kapoor, Chetan Bhagat, and Ram Gopal Varma being a few of them. Some, on the other hand, called the whole issue a very “disrespecting” and “unacceptable” thing. They asked Tanmay Bhatt to accept his mistake and apologise.

What I find amusing in the whole situation is the reaction of people which can easily fall under the category of overreaction. Sending a person to jail for something of this sort doesn’t sound right. Do we not have more important issues than taking a comedian’s words so seriously? Bhatt’s video was definitely not funny but is it right to give so much importance to it? The same thing happened when AIB Roast took place. People went ballistic and criticised all the celebrities who attended the event. Even though everyone insulted and made fun of who was present there and they had no problem with the whole harmless interaction. Also, many reality TV shows mimics popular personalities and make people laugh. Comedy Nights Bachao is based on the very concept of calling celebrities and insulting them and, mind you, they go to the lowest possible level to get TRPS.

So, does the age factor made things complicated for Bhatt? Or was it the zero tolerance of people towards anything out of the box? Or maybe people simply want issues these days because they have nothing better to do?  People hated Aamir Khan when he pondered over his wife’s words. Her concern about her child and suggestion to move out India made everyone furious and, like always, they took to social networking sites to spread the hatred. Anupam Kher, too, supported these nameless haters.

Maybe that’s why Bhatt decided to do something controversial. He knew how he can capture everyone’s attention and, surely, he got what he wanted.

This is not the first time people mimicked Lata Mangeshkar or Sachin Tendulkar. They’ve been copied and made fun of over and over. Comedians dress up like them and make the audience laugh by copying their accents. These so-called Bollywood stars have done the same thing many times to make their movie a success.  Although, they didn’t go as low as Tanmay Bhatt but isn’t the way to create humour same?

Burning Tanmay Bhatt’s photos and calling him names doesn’t affect him at all. If anything, he’s asking everyone to include his Snapchat username while they’re talking about him. Ironically enough, a US daily called Lata Mangeshkar as “a so-called playback singer”

The main question which arises out of the whole controversy or many of this type, is simple: Are we heading towards a country whose tolerance level is wearing thin and, hence, no one should voice their opinion or mock anyone because that would only result in infuriated Indians?

Written by Priyanka Chauhan
A bibliophile and an aspiring writer who lives with a  dream to travel the world.