All India Backchod is creating buzz again for their new late night show On Air With AIB. Ashish Shakya, one of the members, tells Shrabasti Mallik that the country needs a show where issues and subjects are packaged with wit and humour for the youth to understand
They do nothing that guys their age do spend long hours working, going on trips, saving money or going on romantic dates with their girlfriends. But everything that they do not only leaves us in splits but also sets the grey cells in our brains in motion. Even a year ago Ashish Shakya, Abish Mathew, Tanmay Bhat and Gursimran Khamba were just four guys who called themselves All India Bakchod and took a dig at current raging issues and made a satire out of them on a YouTube show.
Within the last few months much has been said, discussed and even criticised about the Roast show that they organised. But nothing deterred their spirits. They subsequently formed a movement in support of net neutrality and received a whopping response.
Of late, they are back in news for their new show titled On Air With AIB, which is being called an Indianised version of John Oliver’s last Week Tonight. According to the format of the show, the guys will pick up relevant subjects and present it across. “With a pinch of salt, you can call it,” added Ashish, who hosts the English version of the show (also being shot in Hindi with Abish and Tanmay) with Gursimran.
But witty as he is, Ashish insisted on adding more, “We watch late night shows and realised that nothing as engaging as this is there on Indian television. As we discussed about it more, it became clear that there needs to be a show which can talk about the latest issues and also humorously point out the faults and fallacies, if any.”
The issue of their first show was about the Vyapam scam and the whistle blowers’ act. Ashish mentioned that the guys got the idea after the stupendous support that they received for their net neutrality campaign. “As votes and supports kept pouring in...well...like millions, we realised how much we can influence people. For the campaign, we never expected such response. It worked out well. We understood then that people listened to us,” he said.
“The idea is not to make an issue more serious that it already is. Our core audience is the young generation and this is the best way to reach out to them. When you put it in pen and paper it becomes boring and most people do not want to read it. People don’t pay attention. But the moment you package it in a funny way that both makes you laugh and propels you to think, then half the job is done,” Ashish explained.
Two episodes into the show and the team looks forward to keeping the content light. Or as he put it, “A mix of AIB bag of humour.” So far, they are happy with the responses that they are getting. But are they not worried about any wrath that they might have to face considering that they are openly discussing about government issues and mocking the systemIJ “If you give good content then there’s no need to worry. We are comedians, that’s our job. We are making issues accessible to youngsters in our way. Ideally there should be no objections either,” said Ashish, clearing all doubts.
They do not claim to be revolutionaries, taking the world (in this case, country) by storm and change the norms of things. All they want from their viewers is respect. “We inform and entertain,” Ashish said.
If we think about it, the show mocks the system rather bluntly. So is there any possibility that it will bring a change in the society which is not even ready to accept its own shortcomingsIJ Ajit Mohan, head of digital, Star India, replied, “Change is not an event, it is a process. Rarely in history do television shows cause huge societal changes. So I would word it a bit differently. The aim is to throw the spotlight on consequential issues and point the way to a better, more perfect country.”
We asked him how Indians take to humour because people cannot accept most of the content. “As far as I know, humour does not have a nationality,” he said, while both Ashish and he remained unavailable to comment on whether the show will take up the issue of the growing intolerance. All that we could get out of Ashish was, “You’ll have to watch the show.”