I Am Offended, Review: Defending the right to offend

It’s all about an idea, says director Jaideep Varma, about film-making. Seeing the timing of his film’s release, one can add another doctrine: It’s all about timing. I Am Offended, a feature length documentary about humour and intolerance, was released on Being Human/You Tube in February 2015, bang in the middle of the ongoing AIB Roast (more on that below) controversy which has polarised the Indian entertainment industry.

The documentary was initially supposed to release in a few PVR theatres, in July 2014, but Jaideep had been disillusioned with his multiplex chain experience during Leaving Home (released through BIG Cinemas), and was getting progressively disillusioned this time too. So, he asked his producers if they could release it on YouTube. And it is now on Being Human, a You Tube source of videos. That is where it is, all 102 minutes of it.

Jaideep Varma was in advertising for 12 years, as a copy-writer, then gave it up in 2000, to be a full-time writer. He published a novel, Local, in 2005. He then directed a feature film, Hulla, which was released in 2008, and a full-length documentary feature film, called Leaving Home - the Life & Music of Indian Ocean (the band), which was released in 2010 and won the National Film Award. Purely accidentally, he invented a statistical system in cricket, called Impact Index, which can help make selection of cricketers more effective.

This film is about all forms of comedy, except film and theatre: stand-up comedy, Hindi Kavi Sammelans (poets’ gatherings), cartoonists, satirists and mimics. Interestingly, it starts with a mid-shot of Sanjay Rajoura driving a car and saying, in profile, “We do not have a sense of humour.” Sanjay also narrates the most poignant incident in the film, where he and a group of young men were watching an India-Pakistan cricket match in a pub. They went out to smoke, during a drinks break, and seeing an 85-year-old beggar in a lungi (a sarong-like cloth worn by men in India), a kurta (flimsy, long, loose shirt) and a cap, holding the hands of a four year-old girl, they forced both of them to chant, “Jeetega bhai jeetega, hamara India jeetega” (brother, our India will win, India will win) four times, and then handed him two rupees as alms ($0.3, at current rates).

Soon, we are reminded that several books and films have been banned in India, and pubs that have had to shut down as a result of raids by moral police. Among the dozens of personalities talking on camera, there is one who says that he used to write gags for Farhan Akhtar (actor-producer-director) to read from a tele-prompter, but felt that he could do a much better job narrating his own jokes, so went live. To quote Varma, “TV has been destroyed by power structure. Internet is our only hope.”

I Am Offended stars a who’s who of comedy that includes Sanjay Rajoura, Aditi Mittal, Rohan Joshi, Tanmay Bhat, Gursimran Khamba, Ashish Shakya, Johnny Lever, Raju Shrivastav, Vir Das, Sorabh Pant, Neeta Palta, Atul Khatri, Varun Grover, Papa CJ, Abhigyan Jha, Sundeep Rao, Rajeev Nigam and Rajneesh Kapoor (who looks so much like Rajat Kapoor that I was willing to bet he was indeed the brother of Rajat Kapoor. Needless to say, I would have won). It also features satirist/columnist Jug Suraiya and Rahul Roushan, who runs Faking News. There is a cameo by Sudhir Mishra, who was the subject of Varma’s last documentary. Unfortunately, we have very little of Johnny Lever and Raju Shrivastav, and what little is there is matter-of-fact, even serious (both have, like many comedians, a serious dispoition in real life). Johnny, Raju and Sudesh Bhosle are the stars of the world of stage humour, broadly dubbed 'mimic's in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Johnny is the most multi-faceted of the trio, having excelled in dance and acting too, besides mimicry and joke-narration. Sudesh, who prefers singing to mimicry, is missing altogether in this film, and his absence is felt.

Almost all aspects of the professsion are covered, including fees, corporate audiences, English v/s Hindi humour, paucity of female stand-up comics, preferences varying from city to city and the lack of a permanent platform. Only Mumbai has a dedicated stand-up comedy venue. Vir Das, who has recently been working in films, recounts how his most appreciated performance during the US days was one in which he used the ‘f’ word countless number of times, with little else around it! Which brings me to AIB.

AIB a comedy collective - run by Khamba, Tanmay, Rohan and Ashish Shakya, which does comedy in podcasts, sketches and stand up! Gursimran Khamba unwittingly dropped a prophecy in the film. He said, “I do think one of us will get in trouble for sure.”About a month ago, an inquiry was ordered by the Maharashtra government against AIB, for putting up an event that was based on the international concept of a Roast--a show that involves persons who agree to being subjected to ridicule and audiences who pay for attending the show. The event, staged in December 2014, included some prominent film personalities, a film-critic and a TV producer on stage, while several film-stars sat in the audience. It aired on You Tube in January, and drew highly charged- responses for its no holds barred, ‘obscenities’ galore, proceedings, that included some jibes at religion too. Some spoke in favour of the Roast, others said, “I Am Offended.” A second level escalation was seen, with holders of one opinion now targetting those with a contrary stand.

After sticking to their guns for several weeks, AIB posted this on their Facebook page, dated 09 February 2015, “We have every right to make jokes and speak our mind in a democracy however, that exact same democracy also gives members of the Christian community the right to be offended, or hurt, by our comments, and more importantly, to raise their voices to point that out.”

Some relief came their way when, a week later, the Mumbai High Court granted them exemption from the government's executive action for a month.

Perhaps the greatest achievement of the film is the fact that there are so many voices. In a strange way, that also weakens its thrust. You do not just have one issue with two sides, you have several issues with several sides. A music track occurs repetitively, and thereby loses its impact. Minimalist compositions and a really tight budget are for all to see, and so full credit to Dhruv Sehgal, Varma’s associate on direction, camera and sound, and Harshad Nalawade (a fiction genre director who has never edited before), who had to edit what must have been a mountain of footage.

I Am Offended is not compelling cinema. It is a chronicle, it is bold, it tells a story that needed to be told, and it deserves a watch.

Rating: ***

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oKx_FAiFpQ

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*Jaideep Varma opines that humour can be found where it might be least expected. “To me, the most shocking incident of recent times was the massacre of school children in Peshawar. But just consider this—the only survivor was a boy who did not make it to school that day. He lost ALL his class-mates in the heinous terrorist act. And what was the boy’s name? Dawood Ibrahim!”

*I Am Offended chronicles the stand-up comedy scene of the last decade or so. Johnny Lever, Raju Shrivastav and Sudesh Bhosle are survivors of the earlier generation, as mentioned above. But I eagerly look forward to a documentation of the work done by the mimics and jokesters of the 50s, 60s and 70s. My peers, who were already names to contend with when I practiced the art in the 70s and 80s, included Shahid Bijnori (his daughter Shagufta Ali is a popular TV actress), Johnny Whiskey, Dinesh Hingoo, Dilip Dutt, Manohar Kamat and Prince Shakeel. When actress-turned entertainer Tabassum launched her own stage group, I had the honour of compèring the event, which included introducing  a young comic, employed by the international Lever group, and popularly called Johnny Lever. My greatest fear was when at a musical programme, I was imitating actor Prithviraj Kapoor (Akbar in Mughal-e-Azam), and in walked Shashi Kapoor, his son, as the Chief Guest of the function. Both were stars in their own right, and Prithvirajji was no more. So, would Shashi be offended, seeing me imitate his late father? The sport that he is, he wasn’t. In fact, he had a good laugh, seated right in front of me.