On the weekend I decided to go and see a standup comedy show with a couple of friends. There were two back to back shows and we all were very excited. The first show was by a small time comic from Gurugram, Rathi.

I’ve seen enough stand up comedy in my life and have a good enough sense of humour. I’m also not one of those sensitive types who get offended at everything. However, no matter how woke one is one cannot condone the kind of crass comedy this guy does. His jokes are crude, offensive, dirty and some of them are communal. They border on hate speech for a particular community.

I for one wanted to report him for spreading communal hatred and offending the religious sentiments of a community. But I did not want to give him undue publicity. Because he would have got that. So I dropped the idea. Clearly the guy lacks the intelligence and wit to make good, clean and woke jokes.

If you have to resort to using profanities and abuses and picking on the deaf and small minority communities to make your money then you are not in a good place in your life. Maybe you should take a second look at how you are making your money.

He would do well to sit in and watch some of Neeti Palta’s shows to know how real and hilarious comedy is done. She was the other comedian after Rathi’s act and she was just brilliant. Had everyone in splits without leaving a bad taste or making people grimace. A class act if ever there was one.

The wannabe comics of today would do well to learn from a professional comic like her.