BFFs Dingo and Khanna, stuck in the washroom of a gynaecologist’s office in an episode of the Web serial Ladies Room (the mise-en-scene is always a bathroom for the 20-minute episodes airing on YouTube), discuss strategies for the future as Khanna has just discovered she’s pregnant.

There are no tears, very little drama and, surprisingly, the mother-to-be is only worried about how the uninformed father may want to keep the child. What we now fear is not sharam (embarrassment) but idiocy: that’s a paradigm shift for you.

Coming from a country that has had countless melodramatic movie scenes involving a woman who is pregnant before marriage, it is rare to see one keep her head and take her own decisions in a crisis. Again and again, Juno-styled maternal instincts kick in (such as in Kya Kehna), and conversations about abortion are virtually non-existent. Growing up, a disturbing, yet very popular trope in TV serials involved a doctor emerging from the operation theatre and inevitably asking the father-to-be, “Do we save the mother, or the child, since only one life can be saved?”

While the man almost always chose his beloved wife, the frightening implication of such a choice in the first place — that the woman’s body is but a vessel for the progeny — stands out starkly against the radical ideas and new-age moral platitudes that the Web affords young Indians.

Lady luck

Saba Azaad, previously seen in youth-centric films such as Mujhse Fraandship Karoge, plays Dingo in Ladies Room. “The Indian version of censorship hasn’t yet caught up with the Web, which is why there is so much fresh content coming from there. I have a major problem with how regressive Indian TV soaps have become, post the K-serial age, and they seem to be caught in their own cyclical patterns. Before 1980, there were plenty of shows on Indian and world literature, and fresh ideas were coming out of the system. That has got lost somewhere,” she says.

“In Ladies Room, we use humour to create some very poignant moments. The show is conspicuous by the absence of any main male protagonists; it takes place in spaces occupied only by women. It is revolutionary in many ways. It lets women be themselves, whether it’s their stupid or noble selves, and conversations do not only revolve around the men in their lives.”

Even until a couple of years ago, All India Bakchod (AIB) and The Viral Fever (TVF) sketches were all we had by way of digital channels. Both AIB and TVF have been charged with being sexist from time to time, but these are also comedy groups that have negotiated with feminism. Beginning with a completely male cast and crew, both groups now regularly collaborate with and feature female leads (though the voice remains largely male).

Wedding cues, start-up woes

If the last generation’s concerns were inter-community love, this generation has moved to more existential ones such as individuality, or material ones such as the wedding. It is no coincidence that the million-dollar wedding industry has spawned three such shows — Shaadi Boys, Bang Baaja Baaraat and Permanent Roommates. The Big Indian Wedding is bigger than ever, and its organisers find it more stressful than the ’80s and ’90s.

Permanent Roommates, the most-watched Web series, according to TVF, tells the bizarre story of Tanya and Mikesh, business partners who are expecting their first baby and wish to marry soon, but for the complicated web of wishes that their parents have, making the wedding impossible to negotiate. Mikesh is not your typical hero-with-no-flaws, and Tanya is anything but meek. In a particularly hilarious and incisive episode in Season 2, a very pregnant Tanya and Mikesh are coming back from the gynaecologist, Mikesh’s grandfather in tow, when they get hit by another car.

The scene is played back twice, according to Tanya’s and Mikesh’s respective versions. Tanya gets out of the car, and has a fight with the guy, while Mikesh (literally) takes the backseat. In Mikesh’s narrative, Tanya gets out to keep her ego intact, till ultimately he has to intervene and ‘save the day’. Expectations versus the reality of changing relationship dynamics makes up much of the hilarity of Permanent Roommates. In all the fun and laughter, the show provides a space for a different portrayal of everyday life, not burdened with vague ideas such as the ‘upkeep of tradition’.

While parents and in-laws grapple with gifts, functions and other details of the increasingly vague wedding over Skype sessions, the show portrays the reality of a rapidly urbanising and cosmopolitan youth. These are the modern-day tales of migration in post-independence India. While most are interpersonal linear narratives, with healthy amounts of kitchen-sink drama, it is hard to ignore the presence of post-liberation, post-globalised India, something that is still all but absent from mainstream TV shows.

One of the familiar stories of inter-state migration in India is that of the starry-eyed entrepreneur. And so, start-ups, their aspirations, the problems they face, and the characters that people them are inspiring content for online shows. AIB’s latest show, Better Life Foundation, loosely reminiscent of the popular show The Office, is a take on the workings of a small-time NGO. The characterisation is fresh: a well-meaning but confused CEO played by Bangalorean Naveen Richard, the overly-enthusiastic intern Sumukhi (Sumukhi Prakash, also seen in Brahman Naman) and the ‘drug-addict-arts-college-dropout’ operations head Jerry, played by funnyman Utsav Chakraborty. TVF’s Pitchers, a show where a young trio quits their jobs and starts something of its own, has many memorable moments that the current generation of 20-somethings relate to.

We are all Arnub

Aaron Sorkin, one of the living legends of broadcast television, is loved and loathed in equal measure, sometimes even by the same people: his signature monologues, filled with hard-hitting, fire-starting lines and a keen political understanding, are often marred by a tendency to be patronising and pedantic. Even his worst detractors will admit, though, that Sorkin knows how to throw that knockout opening punch. His pilots are memorable: think The West Wing, where Martin Sheen was introduced as President Jed Bartlett. In the pilot for The Newsroom, Sorkin’s last TV show, we see anchor Will McAvoy (a rampaging Jeff Daniels) shooting his mouth off over America’s broken political system and the apathy of the young, calling them the “worst period generation period ever period”.

Now picture an Indian show parodying Lord Sorkin, with a cheeky young, wig-wearing blighter mouthing the ‘worst generation’ line with a straight face, the faux-anger shining in his eyes. This was the beginning of the second season of TVF’s Barely Speaking With Arnub, an online show that parodies Arnab Goswami’s Newshour debates and interviews, and generally scoops up millions of hits. With the real Goswami’s hyperbole, amped-up sense of nationalism, and cacophonous accusations spilling over into soap-opera territory, it’s no surprise that Barely Speaking is a laugh riot, skewering politicians, actors and sportspeople alike.

Arnub “with a U” is played by Biswapati Sarkar, creative director at TVF. Sarkar went to college at IIT Kharagpur, where he was first exposed to a wealth of high-quality TV shows and films.

One of his early TVF shows, Chai Sutta Chronicles, was inspired by the Jim Jarmusch film Coffee and Cigarettes. Sarkar wanted to film people having arbitrary, unpredictable conversations over chai-sutta (tea and cigarettes). He told BLink how the Newsroom tribute was plotted, describing Sorkin as “one of the two heavy influences that shape my writing”.

“We came up with the slogan #MakeIndiaGreatAgain as a tagline for the season. And we needed a speech to trigger that thought. We thought spoofing the America speech from The Newsroom would be a funny idea. Of course, Newsroom followers will get it... What we did not anticipate was that a few people would actually think that the speech is copied, not parodied. But, after four years of making content on the internet, you are pretty much used to the extent of human stupidity.”

You cannot take your eyes off Sarkar as Arnub. He has clearly watched dozens of hours of Goswami in action. It is only after repeated viewings that the little touches start to reveal themselves: a mini-twitch of the lips at the beginning and end of a sentence, the self-congratulatory turns of phrase, the practised severity of the eyes. In the first season, Arnub interviewed Shah Rukh Khan in a memorable episode, which Sarkar later said (in a Reddit AMA or Ask Me Anything session) was almost entirely improvised. Normally, statements like these are taken with a pinch of salt, especially as it involves a Bollywood superstar. Not so for Arnub, however: watch the episode to see Khan caught off-guard (although he recovers like the PR champ that he is), a rare sight indeed. At one point, Khan launches into his famous ‘K-K-K-Kiran’ stutter from Darr. Sarkar, without missing a beat, says, “I saw that film, where Sunny Deol kills you. That’s a really funny film.”

Interestingly, Khan goes meta in the next line, muttering, “Since then, a lot of other stars have tried to kill me. I keep coming back...” Barely Speaking is aware of the ridiculously thin line between reality and fiction these days. In fact, Sarkar and company have uproarious fun with the line. In an episode featuring Arvind Kejriwal, Sarkar mischievously also invited Kejriwal’s TVF doppelgänger Arjun Kejriwal (of the Bollywood Aam Aadmi Party). What’s more, the fake Kejriwal even playfully accused the Delhi Chief Minister of copying his style. Sarkar told us: “Imagine Arvind Kejriwal and Jitu (the actor who plays Arjun Kejriwal) in the same frame, coughing together. And Mr Kejriwal was more than happy to play along.”

Some people are so wholly themselves that they seem to preclude the act of parody: Sarkar and TVF cannily spotted this about Kejriwal. Also, the premise of the show proved to be a pretty neat allegory: Arnub is moderating a discussion between Roadies fans and Bigg Boss fanatics, but every line would hold good had it been a discussion on communal strife. The television-show-as-organised-religion shtick isn’t exactly original, but Barely Speaking pulls it off believably and with more than a little joie de vivre.

The news parody genre is only just starting to take off in India, despite an early and impressive start by shows like Cyrus Broacha’s The Week That Wasn’t. In his Reddit AMA session in May, Sarkar had said: “I think we always had ‘Daily Show’ formatted shows in India. Movers and Shakers aired in the ’90s. We’ve actually gone back instead of moving towards satire and political humour.”

In a trend that favours the likes of TVF, the proportion of young Indians who are moving away from traditional media (newspapers, TV channels, radio) is increasing day by day: more and more people now rely on Twitter and Facebook for the headlines.

Dial B for Business

TV shows have lost direction, declares Naveen Kumar, a young professional, explaining his reasons for gravitating towards Web shows: “I only switch on the TV to watch cricket or the sports channels. Stuff on the internet speaks to me, and is a vent for people like me. It picks up themes around love, current politics and friendship, themes the youth is constantly discussing and can relate to.”

According to Ashish Patil, CEO of Y-Films (the makers of Ladies Room and Bang Baaja Baaraat), the Web will take another two years to become a viable medium, but that does not worry him. “Abroad, most revenue comes from subscriptions, but in India all content is available for free. Yet, we have at least six to seven other sources of income, such as licensing music, YouTube channel views, syndication of content, and indirect sources such as intellectual property creation. Our films may feed off our digital content, for instance. The next season of Bang Baaja Baaraat may very well be a film.” As for the Web being a space for more exciting content, Patil feels that the relatively low budget frees the producers to experiment at will. “A good digital show can be created on a budget of ₹10-15 lakh, while the lowest-budget film or TV show will set you back by ₹15-20 crore. I cannot afford to experiment on film budgets, but for digital all you need is a decent smartphone, and a laptop to cut and upload.”

Azaad is confident of placing her bets on digital right now, “Budgets aren’t the same as in television, but viewership and budgets are both growing, as we speak. It is so easy to view them any time: while you’re travelling, or with your morning cup of tea, or even while you’re on the pot. These are all mobile phone-friendly content, that you can carry with you anywhere.”

The end-game seems to be to create and upload. We are all content creators at the end of the day, on Facebook, YouTube or Snapchat feeds. Patil says: “There are some who’ve learned how to structure it well for the vast audiences who are hungry for it,” He believes that’s the real reason behind the success of India’s YouTube sensations.

The Web’s focus on the youth isn’t exactly narrowing the audience, he argues. “More and more people are becoming tech-savvy, with a decent internet connection, and many of our shows have universal appeal. Having said that, 65 per cent of the population of India falls in the 15-35 age group and that is the vast audience base we are seeking to tap.”

As long as young India continues to mostly source news online, start up, sell out, live in, and/or make a meal of their marriage, new YouTube stars will continue to rise on the firmament.

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