Radha K
When I was a kid, I wanted to be an author, a serious author. I used to pour my heart out even in essays I wrote for the English exam in school. This is a flex but our English teacher loved one of my exam essays so much, she published it in our school’s yearbook. So, naturally, my next step was to dream about winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. I even wrote an acceptance speech. It was humble, yet inspiring (it’s okay, take a second to laugh properly). But then life happened. Just like every other kid who wanted to be Sachin Tendulkar or Shah Rukh Khan or Aishwarya Rai, I ended up as a corporate employee (yuck), like a normal upper class, upper caste adult. Now I am a comic, so basically nothing I do is to be taken seriously except my jokes. God forbid a girl jokes about the deplorable state of infrastructure in her country. Suddenly she is the biggest traitor there ever was.
Writing a parody series was never a part of any plan. I uploaded a reel on male authors describing women’s bodies. It didn’t do so well. I recycled it. Basically, re-uploaded it some months later and it did exceedingly well. So, of course, I thought what more could I write on this. I wrote and uploaded a reel specifically on Indian male authors describing women.
Let’s be real. Who is the most popular living Indian male author in our collective psyche? I hate to admit it. But most of us think of one man. Overrated, ew and yuck. But he is minting money with sub-par work. I was already making fun of his latest contribution to Indian literature, 12 Years: My Messed-up Love Story, a love story between a 33-year-old divorced man and a 21-year-old virgin. Death by hanging after being electrocuted would have been justified for it, but we live in a civilized society (at least some of us do), so all we can do is talk about it. We are still living in a world where we have to explain why it is wrong for a middle-aged man to lust after a newly adult girl. My reel on this did super well. I decided to make it into a whole book; three-minute reels where I would just read out a chapter of this parody book. A lot of my audience is still not sure whether it is a parody or an actual book written by Bhagat. Allow me to set the record straight here as well. It is a parody. I am super grateful that it has gotten me an audience that is invested and receptive of my cringe. I honestly had no idea I could write cringe so well!
In case anyone is wondering, how does one write cringe? Like the pitch-meetings guy on YouTube would say, its super easy and barely an inconvenience. The best part about intentional bad writing is that there is zero pressure. You are not questioning every sentence because you tried to read it from the perspective of your most intelligent reader, and now you think you sound like the most lame and obvious writer there ever was! It’s so much fun to see how low I can go to break away from trying to justify your parents spending on your education. When you are writing seriously, you try to avoid all the tropes and clichés and stereotypes, but in a parody, you want to harp on all of them freely and loudly. You are liberated from the desperation to sound intellectual. But, what does it really do for anyone except mindless entertainment?
I was talking to a friend the other day and I excitedly shared that I have been getting a lot of love on my parody series. Now, she is a writer. An actual, serious talented writer. She said, “It’s okay to do it once in a while. But instead of mocking someone else’s work, why don’t you write something of your own?” My reply was honest: because mocking someone is much easier than seriously writing something, and, more importantly, it is getting me more engagement and helping me build an audience for my comedy career. That is my endgame, to make a career in comedy. And I am happy to do whatever I have to in pursuit of it. But, being a serious published author, she was definitely salty, justifiably so.
Writing a book is not for the weak. It is tremendous effort that comes at the cost of mental health and even physical health. That is just the writing part of it. Publishing a book is another dimension of hell, if you are not a celebrity ghostwriting your ‘biography’. After all that, you have to make peace with the fact that, chances are, very few people will ever consume your work. Readers are dwindling, thanks to OTTs and social media. Even people who were avid readers while growing up, are now caught up in making a living. I took my friend’s criticism seriously and was feeling a bit low about my parody series. It’s true. The only reason I am writing it is because it’s relatively easy content that gives me absurdly high returns. It doesn’t take me more than 30–40 minutes to write a chapter and another 30–40 minutes to shoot, edit and upload. To put it in perspective, most of my other comedy reels take a lot of effort, either to write or shoot or edit. Character reels need a lot of practice. Some reels take forever to edit. After all of that, they still don’t work sometimes. You get low engagement and then your day is ruined. Compare that to the parody reels. One hour of work and most of them have crossed 200K views, which is a big deal for a small creator. I was at 17K when the first one did well. So, I wrote more and now we are at 33K. Almost double. It took me 5 years to get 17K and another two months to reach 33K. Why will I not give my audience what they want? Why will I not do what works for my career?
In the grand scheme of things, I have accepted that I am just a random comedian writing a parody. It’s not literature, but does that mean it doesn’t have value? Entertainment is in and of value by itself. It doesn’t need to educate nor make people think to be counted as relevant. It’s great if it does. Mockery of something doesn’t render the mockery devoid of real value.
My own parody series has actually given many aspiring writers confidence in their own writing, albeit it was unintentional on my part. I have messages and comments from these writers that say if Chetan Bhagat can be a published author with such mediocre writing, then they certainly have more faith in their own work. Awesome boo, you go for it!
My parody has (again) exposed the objectification of women by Indian male authors specifically and without pontificating. That’s what comedy does. It makes you think, without preaching. Do male authors objectify women? Yes. Is mainstream Indian literary fiction presenting romance through the male gaze and for the male gaze? Yes. Is it infuriating that mediocre writing by a conventionally successful cis male author is given a place of honour in pop culture? Yes. Parodying this was fun for me and entertaining for my audience.
When a social message is sent wrapped in a joke, it becomes instantly palatable. We can talk social theories and ethics of writing all day and it will put most people, including me, to sleep after sometime. But same idea, put it across as a joke and it’s win-win for everyone. Who doesn’t want to laugh and then think?
Radha is a comedian, content creator and insane foodie. She is an imperfect feminist, LGBTQ ally and connoisseur of pop culture.
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