AIB’s Knockout Roast!!! What a Roast and what a bold new step in Indian Comedy.

If you have still not seen the AIB’s Knockout Roast of Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor, then….. I guess, you must be lying. You don’t have to tell me or anyone else, okay. Don’t come out of the closet. It’s okay, like they said in the Roast, “Why are they talking in public, what we talk in parties”. 😛

AIB is a comedy group of Indian comedians, co founded by Gursimran Khamba and Tanmay Bhatt, along with Rohan Joshi and Ashish Shakya. The event that has generated a lot of interest in them, and their group, is a Comedy Roasting event where AIB, along with Aditi Mittal, Abish Mathews, Raghuram and Rajeev Masand; roasted Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh.

It was special, because it was the first time that a no bounds roasting is done in an Indian comedy group, and that too with Roastee being a celebrity present there.

Roasting is like an insult comedy, where you trash your guest verbally by making fun of him/her in a best satirical way possible and the guest along with his well wishers present there, take all these insults in a good humor. If you want a more desi explanation – it’s more like in ladies sangeet of Indian Marriage where in some special songs, other party of marriage, is trashed in an abusive language.

Karan Johar was the perfect Roast Master and I would like to say, that he was at his best in the show. He was witty, with a perfect timing and, boy! He was sporty. Infact some of the best jokes were told on Karan’s expense. A big thumbs up for you, Karan.

What was interesting in all this was to see our female celebrities, like Deepika, Alia and Sonakshi, not only present there but also taking a lot of roast on themselves, in a very good way. Specially Deepika, seriously, thanks for taking one for the team. Alia baby, baby baby baby…. what were you doing there? Poor you! My bachcha…. beta, stay at home, these type of shows are for adults only.

Roasting was great, it was all in good fun, sometimes too offensive but when you compare it to Roasting comedy shows done internationally, it was not up to par with them. Where they lack was – content, few members trying too hard and off-course poor editing of the show.

Comedy Central’s Roasting shows are always a great fun to watch for. My favorite among them were those of Charlie Sheen and Joan Rivers. What made these shows fun was not the use of offensive language but the satire and witty one liners.

Content is the king. Some members like Tanmay, Khamba and Aditi were fresh in selecting their jokes and creative too. The best out of all the panel was Tanmay, who clearly is abundant in his talent too. Other comedians too were good but they became too much repetitive after some time. Most of the jokes look stale. Raghuram and Rajeev Masand were seriously not a good choice as the member of Roasting panel.

Specially Raghu was still on his Roadies set, and looked like he is trying too hard. He was stiff and abusive unnecessarily. Best rule of roast comedy is to roast someone in a way that as if you are toasting them. You don’t need to shout, as Raghu and Masand did, but infact you have to be satirical; which both lacked.

What did the most damage to the whole show, was its editing. It was like scrap of pieces joined together to make a comedy show. There was no continuity and flow. It was edited so much that it looked like the Roast of roasting panel than of the Roastees. Poor Rajeev Masand was highly edited, I don’t why, but it was like he said hi, and bye in a single shot.

To be honest, the Roastees, Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh did a far better roast than the roasting panel. Arjun too, looked like he is trying hard to look cool with the whole idea, but he can’t look cool, not when he is in company of Ranveer Singh.

Ranveer stole the show. He was the best. Let it be his mimicry of Rajeev masand, or his take on Raghu’s abusive private life, he was The Best. Karan scored just next to him. For the rest, you need to up your game.

It was not the best, but it is big step for Indian Comedy indeed. Kudos to the whole AIB team for tackling this Elephant in the Room. 😛

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