When Pahlaj Nihalani got roasted on social media

After Pahlaj Nihalani was featured on a news channel ignoring a reporter asking him questions about the word ‘intercourse’, the Internet has had a field day by turning the event — and the man himself— into a meme. The CBFC chairman had earlier thrown open a challenge that if there were one lakh positive votes, he would revoke his decision to nix the word ‘intercourse’ from King Khan’s upcoming film Jab Harry met Sejal. The Twitterati helped along by the news channel in question, started a campaign, and soon enough, one lakh votes were gathered.

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When the reporter went to confront Nihlani with the results, though, he shied away from her and sulked in the corner of the elevator while she asked him question after question. Of course, Nihlani’s absurd reaction got the social media mavericks going once again as they churned out meme after meme. Perhaps one of the most active of the lot was city-based stand-up comic Jose Covaco who made three spoof videos using the footage from the reportage. In two of them, he juxtaposed the reporter’s voice with beatboxing and his own set of questions. The third video was his take on what other people in the elevator must have felt like.

“I was just bored. Now I can’t stand to look at the video anymore because I’ve seen it so many times,” laughs Jose.

Jose Covaco

The stand-up comic had been following the news on the Harry Met Sejal controversy from the beginning, retweeting petitions and asking his fellow Twitterati to support it. “It’s unfortunate that there’s no protest from Bollywood to such whimsical and arbitrary monitoring by the Certification Board, which is just supposed to rate a film. It’s like staying with my mother. And those of us who are living out on our own, don’t deserve to be moral policed by a pseudo-mother-figure like this,” he continues.

Finding it disturbing that Bollywood continues to stand by and take it when these controversies happen, Jose hopes that this time round, the petitions would have had some effect on the immovable CBFC system. “It’s disconcerting to see Bollywood fall in line every time the CBFC asks them to remove some word or scene. A ridiculous instance was when the Prime Minister stepped in and asked Karan Johar to donate money when he cast Fawad Khan. I guess it finally took a news channel and Twitter to show Nihalani what’s what. I hope things get better after this. Otherwise, at least we can say we told him off this once,” he grins.

Will Nihalani change his ways? Let’s wait and watch.