Kusha Kapila Upset With Samay Raina's 'Jokes' On Her Divorce; Why Is Crossing Boundaries 'Just For Fun' So Normalised?

The first episode of Aashish Solanki’s show, ‘Pretty Good Roast Show’ featured Kusha Kapila and Solanki’s roast panel including Gurleen Pannu, Aaditya Kulshreshth, Shreya Priyam Roy, and Samay Raina. The host himself and the panel were seen roasting Kusha Kapila on her divorce, facial hair, and whatnot.

Kusha Kapila Said Some Jokes Were 'Shockingly Unkind'

Kapila revealed that she was on the show just as a favour to a friend and did not get paid for it, in a statement posted on YouTube. “A recent roast I was a part of has led a lot of my female and queer followers to question why did I sit through something that could have been completely avoided and WITH GOOD REASON. Here are my two cents: it was done in good faith and for a friend. Nobody has been paid (neither comics nor guests) for it so the argument that people are ‘being paid big fat cheques to hear their insults’ is baseless. Jokes weren’t shared beforehand (as it’s done in all roast formats in the West) so I had no idea what was in store for me. Maybe I should have asked for a script and known better but since friends were involved I didn’t. While I endured some of the really raspy jokes in front of a live audience and technicians, I absolutely was not okay with it playing for millions of people since some jokes straight-up dehumanised me. It was shockingly unkind,” the statement read.

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A post shared by Samay Raina (@maisamayhoon)

“This has been a huge learning for me too since over the course of the last six months during negotiations, I have been told that I deserve these jokes and that as a divorced woman, I should have seen this coming. Maybe I should have and maybe silence on this topic is seen as cowardice but it’s mostly choosing peace over endless discourse that will likely villainise women. Simultaneously, when you don’t speak, people also choose to believe whatever they want to. So this is me clearing the air as much as I can and advising women artists to have strict riders in place,” it continued.

Kusha Shares Cryptic Post Amid Controversy Involving Samay Raina

Kusha recently shared a cryptic post on Instagram that read, “When someone’s trying to disempower you, it’s their garbage. It’s not yours to store. Let it slide off you."

Why Do People Feel Comfortable Crossing Boundaries ‘For Fun’?

Does making people laugh need to mean putting someone else down? Recently, a lot of incidences have come to light where people roast others or criticise them ‘just for fun’ completely ignoring its impact on that person. Even friends sometimes casually roast each other and cross a boundary too far. And god forbid, if you get offended, you hear comments like “He/she can’t take a joke,” or “Hey, I’m just pulling your leg, why are getting offended?”

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The question is why do people feel comfortable crossing boundaries and exploiting someone’s insecurities just because they want some laughs at their so-called ‘hilarious jokes.’ You can find so many YouTubers and Instagram influencers who do this for a living, yes, put other people down for their bread and butter. Did you ever think why they can earn with such heinous content? Well, it’s because the consumers aka most of us probably like their content which gives them a push that should’ve been a shove.

I mean, if you want to make people laugh, make good jokes, not make someone look like a joke. A colleague of mine, Aparna Sharma shared one such scenario. “The problem with today's generation is that they think being insensitive is cool. The way joking about someone's insecurities, body, family problems, and even disability is being normalised scares me. Being a victim of body shaming myself, I can't begin to describe the level of evil people have achieved. My ex-best friend used to make body-shaming comments. She made me feel uncomfortable in my own skin and when I confronted her, she had the audacity to make me the bad person. I was called overly sensitive and uncool for not being able to tolerate bullying. What people don't understand is that being empathetic is cool! And those who can't understand this are far from redress,” she said.

I was discussing this with my mother, Savita who is in her 50s and she reminded me of Lt Raju Srivastav, a known comedian. She said, “He never used to put anyone down, did clean comedy and still had us laughing till our stomachs hurt.”

In my opinion, being offended by something that is insulting and degrading doesn’t mean you can’t take a joke. It means you don’t take insults and know how to stand up for yourself.

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