“I want to perform standing up because the things I am going to say means that I have to be ready to run away.”
So begins lyricist, songwriter, screenwriter, and comedian Varun Grover’s comedy routine on the demonetisation of ₹ 500 and ₹ 1,000 notes.
“For the past few days, it has become easy to avoid Arnab but there’s someone who has become difficult to avoid.” He continues, “You know who that is. It’s become so difficult to avoid him that even today in a bookstore where I thought we’ll discuss films and no one has mobile phones, I ran into a copy of his poetry. I found it terrible but not as terrible as what is happening right now. On the morning of November 8 and 9, America got Trump and we got demonetisation.”
Grover goes on to talk about some funny scenes he has witnessed since Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the move – such as “uncles” carrying chairs to ATM queues. He also compares his friend’s plight of waiting for hours only to realise that the bank is out of cash when his turn comes, to the experience of using Tinder: “My friend hasn’t been this humiliated even on Tinder,” Grover says to laughs and hoots, “The amount that the ATM humiliated him is many times any humiliation he‘d faced in a love affair.”
The 15-minute video also includes a commentary on everyone’s favourite news service – family WhatsApp groups. “Soon, in court rooms, the Gita will be replaced by Whatsapp as something to swear on.”
First published with image in The Lallan Top. Republished here with minor edits.
