Mumbai, laugh like a Bombil

Walking into RJ Rohini Ramnathanrsquos room at Sion is like getting your head dunked into a vat of colour Bright green and blue doors just beg to be opened assorted incredibly cool paraphernalia mdash including an Audrey Hepburn poster a Mick Jagger icon and a Gone With The Wind alarm clock lines the corners and lightbulbs rim her dressing table from which hang accessories so bright they are probably banned in your homes Rohini Ramnathan RJ who cofounded Bombil Radio a podcast that discusses the city with a healthy dose of humour From the mayhem emerges Ramnathan waving brilliant red flipflops shaped like fish ldquoBombilsrdquo she screams and readily poses for a picture with them The flipflops themselves have no idea of the logo theyrsquore on the Twitter account they have spawned or the podcast they have inspired mainly because theyrsquore inanimate objects but thatrsquos no excuse Ramnathan has just launched Indiarsquos first ever girlsonly podcast with her friend Fidgety Fish who enjoys Clark Kentlike anonymity and everyone needs to stop what theyrsquore doing for a minute and take notice even inanimate objects Bombil Radio bombiltimescom as the girls like to call it is the sister podcast of Bombil Times the Twitter account that tries to keep you informed on every event happening in Mumbai While the latter focuses firmly on events the former has the two girls talking about everything from alcohol permits to the unchecked menace of armpit fat ldquoWersquore just trying to have some funrdquo says 28 yearold Ramnathan a radio professional ldquoWe want to be two real people talkingrdquo u00a0The weekly has had two episodes so far with the first episode getting 200 listens on the first night itself and over a 100 more since The two women speak freely tearing into their Facebook friends with the ferocity of Rakhi Sawant discussing morality and slotting them into neat little categories based on their crimes They talk like theyrsquore with friends unfettered by the chains of censorship that plague mainstream media ldquoYou couldnrsquot talk about sex politics and religion on the radiordquo Ramnathan says ldquoIt has to follow pretty much the same diktat as other media That being said radio has always managed to get away with a lot more than say televisionrdquo u00a0Bombil Radio gets away with even more including the occasional fbomb dropped by one of the girls sex sounds and discussions on whether or not they should record an episode drunk on a Saturday night ldquoBecause it is an alternative it exists without being tamperedrdquo Ramnathan says ldquoWe get to say everything that we canrsquot say otherwiserdquo You canrsquot stop me Bombil Radio is not the only podcast setting online airwaves aflutter there are others far more popular and controversial Actor and comedian Suresh Menon hosts Kaanmasti with MTV VJ Jose Covaco every fortnight Standup comedians Tanmay Bhat and Gursimran Khamba founded All India Bakchod in February and a ragtag group of media professionals named Rohan Joseph Vaishak Ravi Floyd Fernandes and Ashtiaq Dalton have created a weekly mdash The Plan B Project Jose Covaco and Suresh Menon have a blast while recording Kaanmasti Pics Suresh KK Though all four of them claim to exist just to entertain people and get their voices heard theyrsquove also consciously or subconsciously touched upon political and social topics mdash the furore over ACP Vasant Dhoble and his liquor permits for example have featured on all four podcasts Noted theatre artiste Kaizaad Kotwal who was also a professor of theatre film and media studies at the Ohio State University in the States for 16 years equates this phenomenon to the plumbing system so to speak ldquoBlock water at one place and itrsquos going to find another to get out ofrdquo he says According to him the reason for the proliferation of podcasts is simple mdash the encroachment upon civil liberties by our government and not just on free speechu00a0ldquoPeople are being rounded up at partiesrdquo he says ldquoA womanrsquos house was raided because she makes liquor chocolates while land is being stolen in the North East by the government and given to the industriesrdquo When Kapil Sibal decided in December 2011 that the Internet should be monitored there was an uproar amongst its users According to Kotwal these podcasts are part of a collective technological middle finger shown to the authorities by the educated middle classu00a0ldquoBlock me on FB block me on Twitter and Irsquoll show up somewhere elserdquo Kotwal says ldquoHow far will they go to stop merdquo Comedy and the city Put on your dark glasses before you step into Covaco and Menonrsquos daily workstation because that gigrsquos redder than a baboonrsquos bottom The scarlet studio in which Menon and Covaco record their daily show comes equipped with a cricket bat and ball for those moments when yanking each otherrsquos chain gets too boring for them and also sometimes doubles up as the venue to record their weekly podcast Kaanmasti kaanmasticom ldquoIrsquove wanted to do something like this since 2004rdquo Covaco says ldquoI told him mdash lsquoSuresh letrsquos record stuff and put it online It will be so cool mdash therersquos no censorship and you can be real and say what you want Plus there are no clientsrsquordquo At first there was no time then Menon was reluctant but finally in 2012 the powers that be smiled upon Covaco and the first episode of Kaanmasti was released on the Internet ldquoItrsquos very explicit and noholdsbarredrdquo Covaco says ldquoI donrsquot let my wife listen to itrdquo Menon adds with a straight face All episodes of Kaanmasti are laden with cusswords and talk about some really funny really ridiculous stuff The latest episode for example focuses on sex toys and has a long discourse on inflatable dolls All India Backchod httpsoundcloudcomallindiabakchod on the other hand is more currentaffairs oriented ldquoWe tend to talk about whatrsquos in the newsrdquo Bhat says ldquoExcept itrsquos a lot more hilarious Comedy is the best way to get at the truthrdquo Kotwal says ldquoGo back to the time of ancient Greeks and yoursquoll see that their comedies were all aimed at their political weaknessesrdquo Khamba and Bhat spare none mdash from Bollywood to politicos to Japanese men with a penchant for cutting off their own genitals and cooking them mdash yoursquoll find them all turned into the butts of many a joke in each episode of All India Bakchod Khamba and Bhat enjoy a natural chemistry which makes you laugh along with them in their podcasts In many ways The Plan B Project httptheplanbprojectin is similar However none of its creators have the advantage of being comedians mdash theyrsquore just regular people taking the mickey out of one another Since theyrsquore four their opinions tend to differ and the result is a more balanced view 60000 laughs The response to these podcasts has been tremendous with Kaanmasti clocking 50000 page views and 50000 downloads so far Bakchod averaging 6000 listens per episode and 10000 downloads on iTunes and Plan B doing between 1500020000 downloads on iTunes With the number of people listening to them only increasing with each episode the stock of these bright young Internet radio stars seems to be on the rise ldquoWersquore looking for someone to invest 10 million dollars in Kaanmasti so that people can listen to it all over the worldrdquo Menon says with a trademark deadpan look ldquoItrsquos very popular on Mars alreadyrdquo Standup comics Tanmay Bhat and Gursimran Khamba founded the All India Bakchod which has a satirical take on whatrsquos in the news While theyrsquore looking to make money from their online radio adventures none of them want to compromise on their content u00a0ldquoIf wersquore not charging our audience to listen to us and if wersquore saying the same things we would otherwise we donrsquot mind getting sponsorsrdquo Bhat says ldquoThere are advertisers who understand that itrsquos the content thatrsquos driving itrdquo Another thing they have in common is a certain regard for each other and the desire to see more podcasts more competition and at some level more evolution Rohan Joseph of Plan B thinks that proliferation will lead to maturity in the content of podcasts ldquoWe have mainly comedy podcasts because if itrsquos not fun itrsquos not received with as much enthusiasmrdquo Joseph says ldquoOnce people get used to the format theyrsquoll get used to serious discussions Wersquoll have different types of podcastsrdquo Satire and subversion Podcasts have ushered in a new medium of free expression once again courtesy technology and the Internet What you canrsquot achieve with a post or a 140character tweet you can with a podcast by making your voice heard literally And although they havenrsquot purposefully been positioned as an underground movement by their creators they may well be the beginning of one Khamba gives the example of Russian political satire that developed during the communist regime ldquoSongs comics movies and everything satirical was underground Theyrsquod create their own codes and everybody in the public knew that code When you said ldquofishrdquo yoursquod mean the president was a cword and so did the people listeningrdquo ldquoAs soon as you start repressing people the first ones to try to subvert that are the artistes mdash stand up comedians playwrights and the lotrdquo says Kotwal He knows that the existing podcasters havenrsquot set out to fix society with their products However he insists that we focus on the impact not the intent ldquoIf you look at the historical nexus of comedy and political subversion podcasts also fall into that combination whether deliberately or unknowinglyrdquo Kotwal says Ramnathan credits the movement to the times wersquore in ldquoA few years ago the mainstream was running away from social responsibility but Anna Hazare mdash you have to give him credit mdash made the mainstream grow a consciencerdquo Ramnathan says And now you have Satyamev Jayate a show in which a Bollywood powerhouse who couldrsquove made the same money in a mindless blockbuster chose to tackle social issues and strive for change Perhaps these podcasts are a step in the same direction and perhaps one of you can start one too provided you have a little red fishshaped flip flop or a quirky personality for inspirationu00a0