Comedy a cultural practice (continued...) by Shubhanshi Dimri

  

‘Jane de na yaar joke hi toh hai’

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In the previous post we were discussing how popular culture here comedy forms the audience and their humor and hence, their everyday life through the analysis of Gurav Gupta’s ‘advantages of having a daughter’ stand-up comedy. Well, today we would be discussing another example on how comedy as a popular culture articulates middle class audience. So, this time I saw a comedy video named ‘The Heavy Driver story’ by Devesh Dixit and the caption said, “This is what happened when I tried teaching my wife how to drive.” No, this was not sent to me via WhatsApp or by any of my friends, this particular video came as a suggestion after watching Gupta’s video on You-Tube. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD_zC9fO_-8&t=182s ) Women’s driving is the most talked about topic, oh sorry the most mocked about topic. We (gals) all have been at the receiving end of the jokes on women’s driving. We have been mocked on how conscious we are on the road, on how many mistakes women do on roads, wrong cuts, wrong indicators, our anxieties and the list go on and on.

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The caption and mention of the word ‘Wife’ and not partner gave me the idea about the video that it talks of different new way to mock the subordinated, secondary sex. Dixit starts off his sketch with the dialogue, ‘My wife is learning how to drive’ (a pause in between) ‘actually I am learning…… how to teach her’ (Laughter). It’s like an adventure sport, pata nhi hota ajj ghr vapas puhunch payeinge ki nhi, he adds. (More laughter). He mentioned how stupid his wife (Women in general) can be, oh no, not directly, but he accords the audience with one of his observations on how his wife can blow the horn to the person at the back. The sarcasm in the so-called punch and the way he said it resulted in a huge laughter. Which means every member in the audience related to the joke and especially men have said this dialogue at least once in their life. Which gives us the conclusion that everyone in the audience and viewers on the net have made such sexist comments. Confidence buhut zyada hai…… main problem voh hai, he says, I could only hear that woman are dumb and are confident and proud about it. They cannot drive or be intellectual like men. 

‘Fifteen minutes into the first session, this is what my wife said and I quote, “Do not tell me how to drive”, and I was like hain?, Dixit said in hi sketch, I mean this could be an exaggeration but this exaggeration comes from the preconceived notion and the acceptance of the conviction that  women say dumb things to be cute. Further the comedian explained through his ‘self-experienced- incident’ that they had an accident and his wife was driving and she panicked and did more insane things. And the 9 minutes 23 seconds video ends. Yeah! That’s it, in the whole session he just orated, how his wife and women in ‘general’ are bad drivers and take irrational decisions while driving. And his whole act made us believe that this is what happens in real life (with less exaggeration, but yeah it does) and from there the comedians observe and present it on stage, which is a fraught argument. As we have discussed how popular cinema and society are co-constitutive and how these dialogues and punches are carried with the viewers and are spoken in daily lives. Dixit here works with the most common incident, most common joke, most common conviction of the middle class, who can afford a car, that women in their lives can’t drive it. 

 

I remember when my father was teaching my brother and I to drive. A few days into it, although neither my father nor my brother directly said anything to me or about my driving, their facial expressions conveyed a lot more. One day, I remember vividly that I could not take a U turn and panicked and my father had to come onto the driving seat for disaster control, yeah when you are in public with anxious, aggressive, loud, abusive people on the roads of Ghaziabad, UP (NCR). My father had to apologize to the aggressive men behind us. He didn’t say anything to me that day. He just said, “koi nhi aesi hi sikhegi”. No No wait for the twist, from that day till present whenever I am ALLOWED to drive i have to answer the question “Ghuma paige?” for like a million times. My brother brought back the car with scratches and accident marks, I don’t see him handling those discriminating expressions or any questions. 

 

‘Jane de na Yaar Joke hi toh hai’ is the ultimate excuse people give when these sexist, problematic activities come to my attention. Why? Should I let it go?  

 

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