Priyadarshan Column: How We Created a Society Laughing at Vulgarity

Priyadarshan writer and journalist

Be it the shocking comments of Himanshu Jangra and Sejal Pawar in the program of standup comedian Praneet More or the vulgar joke of Ranveer Allahabadia in Samay Raina’s show some time ago, if we judge them on the criteria of decency-obscenity or morality-immorality, then we will not be able to recognize the serious civilizational crisis, which is happening very fast in our times and is getting bigger. Disruption has increased at many levels in the society. The old values ​​have become redundant. We have started recognizing the gender and social injustices hidden in them, but the new value code is not in front of us.

The just and necessary demand for personal freedom has at present achieved a kind of general acceptance, but the need for personal responsibility along with this freedom is not certain. Joint families have disintegrated, nuclear families have also broken – if not emotionally then at least materially. Parents are waiting for their children in their old homes and children are busy understanding the meaning of their freedom in their new jobs and using their newly acquired economic status to buy that thing called happiness which can fill their invisible loneliness.

The education that could have connected these children to the concerns, struggles or questions of life no longer exists. Expensive education in the name of a well-paying job after 12th has determined their priorities. A gleaming office is both their home and society, which is carried on their shoulders in the form of a laptop and keeps showing them the ways to eat, drink, laugh and live amidst the stress of work.

These paths are made between standup comedy, good and bad films available on OTT, strange videos, reels and various kinds of temptations. The scenes of their body postures changing every two-three seconds fill their subconscious with a sense of impermanence – jobs have to keep changing, relationships have to be formed and broken, there is no need to take the body and physical relationships too seriously. This is where a society is formed, which considers misogynistic, abusive and vulgar jokes as a part of comedy and is seen laughing at it.

Unfortunately, this process is going on at a time when, for the first time in India, girls are demanding and wanting their freedom on an equal footing. This has also made the new generation more sensitive towards gender equality than the older generations. But the masculinist psyche that has developed between the old feudal rot and the new modern debauchery is still active somewhere in the subconscious and it insults against this equality on many fronts, considering girls as something to be bought for a biryani of Rs 370.

It is also unfortunate that there is no cultural discourse in the new India – there are only viral videos in the name of literature, poetry, creation, which create thrill in life. The politics whose responsibility is to create this cultural environment is immersed in the pit of communalism, casteism and corruption.

For him the riot is also an opportunity and the relief to be distributed after the riot. So where will this generation get its values ​​from? So the boys and girls of this directionless, valueless generation make vulgar jokes, apologize and sink into depression in the name of comedy. If there is no home, family, society, then all justice has to be done on the social media, which only knows how to enjoy.

Personal responsibility has not been fixed. The education which could connect children with the concerns, struggles or questions of life has not survived. In such a situation, children of the valueless generation go around making vulgar jokes in the name of comedy.

(These are the author’s own views)

Make Dainik Bhaskar your favorite source on Google ➔