We are obviously scared now: Gursimran Khamba on AIB Roast

Early last year, India’s most popular comedy collective All India Bakchod broke new ground by organising the first ever roast.

A popular concept abroad, the AIB Knockout, hosted at the NSCI auditorium in Worli, saw the funny four along with Karan Johar and Aditi Mittal take digs at actors Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor, who played sporting victims.

What they didn’t foresee was being slapped with FIRs on the participants and organisers on the ground of obscenity.

The list of offenders thus included- the President of NSCI Jayantilal Shah, secretary general NSCI Ravinder Aggarwal and participants in the AIB Roast including Karan Johar, Ranveer Singh, Rohan Joshi, Tanmay Bhatt, Gursimran Khamba, Ashish Shakya, Aditi Mittal, Deepika Padukone, Alia Bhatt, Rajeev Masand and Arjun Kapoor.

“To be really honest, none of us thought it would be this big an issue, even in our wildest dreams,” admits AIB’s Gursimran Khamba, nearly a year after that incident, while speaking at Coalition India.

The case, however, is still on.

Adding how they were flabbergasted at the news, Khamba admits their first reaction was disbelief.

“I mean, come on. There are farmers dying in Maharashtra and you really want to make an issue out of this and give us three day primetime coverage?”

Having cases against them did see several brands being wary of approaching them, but Khamba thinks the most damaging impact was to their confidence.

“We are obviously scared now. We’ll think twice before including a joke. But, there are times that I just don’t care and think, no matter what I’m going ahead with my sketch, but later I realised that can’t be the case anymore,” Khamba adds.

He says comedy is subjective, and admits they make content for a mature audience. “The reason we have Bakchod in our name is to let people know we’re for a select audience”, he adds.

“The only way you come out of something like this without getting scared in the future is if you don’t have a family to worry about or if you have the kind of money that Vijay Mallya does,” he signs off.

Image credit: Indiatimes