Edgy

Forget criticising society’s suffocation. Today’s edgy comedy tightens the noose, asks you to think of the suffocation as a radical act, and insists you laugh at an easy-to-consume fufaji joke.

In 1944 in India, abusing a writer took commitment. You had to write a vile note, find the address of the offending author, and make a trip to the post office. Only then would you have written abuse that “had they been uttered before a corpse, it would have got up and run for cover.” 

That’s how Ismat Chugtai described the letters she received after she was sued for obscenity for her short story. “Lihaaf” is a story of a Nawab’s wife, Begum Jaan and her female maidservant, Rabbu told through the eyes of a child. It’s sensuous, shocking, and funny. It is, as the kids say these days, edgy. 

Or actually, that’s what the kids think they are saying. I caught myself thinking of Chugtai after seeing one too many Instagram reels of “edgy” comedy that felt anything but. 

Think mental health is fake? Yes, you are right! Here are some jokes dismissing Deepika Padukone and her depression. 

Think women need to know their place? Why don’t you hoot while this man makes jokes about how women are gold diggers because of course no one has thought like this ever before.  

Think the jokes on rape, abortion, and queer folks in a country where gender-based violence is increasing everyday should actually, you know, punch up? Arre, you don’t get provocative comedy. You need guts to be bigoted, misogynist and casteist in a society that’s bigoted, misogynist and casteist. 

When laughing at these supposedly edgy jokes, the question we seem to be not asking is this — what exactly is so provocative in just confirming, reconfirming, and then laughing with the biases that make our society what it is? Shouldn’t comedy be making us laugh at those biases? Society tells us to be a certain way. We absorb that conditioning. If after a joke, that conditioning is not challenged but is instead validated, then what’s the point of the joke?

For example, patriarchy. A deeply absurd and funny construct. Women are supposed to be the sacred presence and custodians of morality as reminded to us periodically by “don’t wear short skirts,” honour killings, and Amitabh Bachchan saying “parampara, pratishtha, anushasan.” But women also have to live their entire lives in fear because the maxim of “respect women” goes out of the window when women are assaulted and abused in the streets, in our homes, in marriages, in families, in offices, in schools, in hospitals, in trains…you get the picture.

Now, a joke that exposes this hypocrisy is the one that I’d be happiest to like, share, and subscribe to. But a joke that instead of deflating the status quo, dresses it up in cool trends, and asks “aap comfortable ho na?” is not the resistance.

Spotlighting discomfort through jokes is exactly what Dalit comedy does brilliantly. When a Dalit comic like Manjeet Sarkar makes a joke about how surprised he was that caste discrimination also exists in the cities, he is making us squirm in our privilege. The laugh here is the shock in acknowledging that which no one wants to acknowledge. 

Rape jokes, another no-go as far as comedy is concerned, can also be funny. There are entire comedy nights put together by rape survivors in New York and Canada that show that. The question when confronted with a joke, as always is, bol kaun raha hai? Who is telling the joke? If as a privileged upper-caste man you are using shock to further strengthen your privilege rather than question, then where is the rebellion? Sir, aap toh Umbridge ho.

At her obscenity trial, Chugtai was accompanied by Saadat Hassan Manto. Both writers steadfastly refused to apologise for what they had written. Seeing this, the judge called Chugtai informally to his chamber. Chugtai writes what happens next in her memoir,

“Manto’s writings are often littered with filth.”

“The world is also littered with filth,” I said in a feeble voice.

“Is it necessary to rake it up, then?”

“If it is raked up, it becomes visible and people feel the need to clean it up.”

The judge broke into laughter.

The filth must be made visible. And art — whether it’s literature or comedy or cinema — is undeniably the rake with which we can do it. But if you’re adding to the filth instead, piling on to the vileness of thought that exists, and refusing to take accountability for your actions, then it’s time to make some space. 

Pass the mic — and the damn rake.

Translated versions of Chugtai’s Lihaaf is here and Manto’s Bu is here.  Thank you as always for reading. I would love to hear from you, so hit “Reply” to say hi. If you liked what you read, share it with a friend. If you didn’t like it, share it with an enemy.

I’ll write again, soon.