Vir Das' recent production Battle of Da Sexes represented men and women as contradictions stuck with each other. Iknoor Kaur reports
Recently Delhiites swarmed the Siri Fort Auditorium — not to enjoy a cultural programme, romance their girlfriends or simply pass time — but to fight. The atmosphere was tense. Some men walked sullenly to their seats and probably cussed under their breath while doing so and some just couldn’t wait to end the awkward conversation they were having with their dates. They may have been married, in love or just acquaintances, but there was only one condition in which they could have entered the auditorium — with a person from the opposite sex who would not sit beside them through the programme. The auditorium was divided in two parts segregating the men and women because after all, it was the Battle of Da Sexes. Written and performed by Vir Das, Ashwin Gidwani’s recent production was staged in the Capital for the first time and got the response it needed. While Das was his witty self, the audience was choking for fresh air as they laughed like nobody’s business.
Comedian Neeti Palta opened the show and ripped apart international denim companies as she went ahead. “Women are usually conscious of their figures and these denim companies love to tease them. So they will give you a size 26 on the waist but we will be struggling on the floor to get the jeans past our thighs. And while we will be wriggling, this one lanky GK II chick will cross over and say, ‘Bhaiya, isme ek bada size dena please’,” she quipped.
Das was, of course, the only reason half of the women folk were in the auditorium because as he stepped on stage the women let out the loudest roar possible. The wit master covered various aspects of men and women and literally noted the nitty gritties. He quipped while discussing the abilities of the two genders in business, “Women are not only better at business, but are also more relaxed. That is why the richest woman in the world, liliane Bettencourt, managed to earn $30 million by just telling other women ‘You’re worth it’. Men on the other hand always want to expand their businesses and end up exhausted. Thus, the richest man in the world, Carlos Slim, who owns two telecommunications companies and conglomerate Grupo Carso, earns only 40 million more than Bettencourt, but slogs his a** off.”
The comedian also spoke in context to literature and said, “There is something known as mirror neurons in our brains which help us enjoy fiction. Women have 15 per cent more of these neurons which is why they enjoy the opening paragraph of Arudhati Roy’s God of Small Things and men don’t. Men enjoy lighter fiction like newspapers and political speeches…”
Das had mentioned earlier that he has managed to make people laugh every 10-12 seconds in this show in Mumbai. However, this show made women laugh exactly every two seconds — the joke being funny or not. Thus, women emerged as winners eventually with their laughter decibel levels being almost 30 per cent more than that of men.