'The Seinfeld issue has become a joke in the international community'

We catch Vijay Nair at a bad time Not only has it been a few short weeks since the controversial cancellation of what could have been standup comedian Jerry Seinfeldrsquos maiden performance in Asia but it is also almost the end of the financial year When we meet at his Lower Parel office Nair is busy looking at the companyrsquos accounts mdash a task which as he had candidly admitted in his official statement issued shortly after the cancellation is ldquounpleasantrdquoOnly Much Louder OML CEO and founder Vijay Nair at his office in Lower Parel Pic Satyajit DesaiHowever the entrepreneur assures us that the fight is far from over In an interview Nair talks about approaching state governments for the installation of a single window licencing system Section 66 A and why he prefers to host events in Delhi over Mumbai ExcerptsQ You have been tweeting about approaching state governments to change licencing laws So what is the licencing system like todayA Right now you have to approach about 15 people for a single permission and there are 20 such licences that you need to have which is such a waste of time Take the Andheri Sports Complex for instance mdash a place where a lot of events happen Letrsquos say there are four events happening in the same week and everybody is applying for the clearances such as the fire clearance traffic clearance and so on But some 300 events have already taken place so far at the complex Such venues should be able to have a permanent licence for events in some sense and have basic things covered beforehandQ The current system does sound pretty complexA Event licencing is designed in such a way that you get the licence the day before the event And if you are new to the business you will get it on the afternoon of the event This is one of the major problems Some licences are designed for the last minute in such a way that you have to beg and you know what happens next mdash you will have to go and lsquolook after peoplersquo They are structured in such a way that they benefit those working in the government and not businessesQ What about Maharashtra in particularA Maharashtra is the only state where an international artiste needs a CID clearance to perform This is also the only state which has a censorship for events mdash and this is one of the biggest challenges standup comedians face because they donrsquot know what they are going to talk about as they make the content the day before Recently somebody applied for a clearance and there was a joke about Gujaratis They were told that jokes about communities are not allowed Neither are jokes about men and women allowed so what are we supposed to talk about At some point the government has to protect the right to entertain and to be entertainedQ So what are your top demandsA Our main thing is that we should have a onewindow licencing system so that we can have more events as big events can bring in anything between Rs 40 to 50 lakh a day We also want a better tax structure Right now there is a 25 per cent entertainment tax in Mumbai and Delhi and the new Union Budget has added a 14 per cent service tax to this So 40 per cent of ticketing revenue will go in taxes How will we ever make a profit A Rs 4000 ticket cannot suddenly become R4700 or Rs 5000 mdash a fan wonrsquot pay that much Also mdash this is pretty damn shocking for a country that does so many events mdash safety and security guidelines do not exist in India So abroad an eventrsquos capacity may be 5000 people But in India the concert will have 15000 people because there is nobody to look into this This is a major security hazard as thatrsquos how stampedes happen We want such guidelines to be laid down as we are one disaster away from things collapsingQ So far you have already approached the Delhi and Maharashtra governments How supportive were theyA We sent an email on March 13 to the Delhi Chief Minister and we got a response from Arvind Kejriwal himself on March 19 His response was encouraging which started off saying Nair quotes from the letter lsquoYour letter indicates towards three important systematic issues that plague the government mdash arbitrary decision making corruption and inefficiency in government machineryrsquo and that the lsquoAam Aadmi Party government is already in the process of simplifying rationalising and digitalising all government related paper work under a single window and websitersquo So they have asked our help to recreate this system In Maharashtra we have spoken to Poonam Mahajan and she has promised to help us She has called for a meeting sometime soon She will send the draft to the CM What is disappointing is that Devendra Fadnavis participated in a conference about Mumbai as an entertainment destination and yet three or four weeks later the show got cancelledQ How far into the whole process are youA I am in the middle of writing my suggestions I will put them up online next week and see what people have to say We have decided to make this whole campaign public Let people see for a change who is responding and who is doing what In the first 10 days of April we will meet with the Delhi government My personal focus is DelhiQ And why is thatA Because we sell the most number of tickets for any event in Delhi Also we got a response from them within five days and it is a government that is trying to prove a point Also none of the best events in the country like NH7 and Sunburn happen in Mumbai because none of us want to do it here You have such nonsensical laws For instance take MMRDA Itrsquos a good venue but the cityrsquos debris get dumped there at night and every time we go there we have to have road rollers clear the whole thing Secondly we are not allowed to serve liquor there We can serve alcohol at the NSCI Racecourse but not in Bandra Why Is Bandra more precious I prefer to host an event in Delhi and Bangalore Mumbai is my fourth option after PuneQ Sounds like itrsquos a pretty bleak situation for fans in MumbaiA What is more disappointing is that the scenario can be so much better with some interest from the government Look at the guys who run Liberty cinema He doesnrsquot want to do mainstream stuff But since cinemas have a weird tax structure he is not allowed to hold concerts because you have to pay a huge tax Another example is Rang Bhavan I get that there is a sound guideline there but it has been lying empty for 10 years Why canrsquot we convert it into a creative hub or an incubator place where theatre artistes can rehearse You could make R30000 per day just from rentals My artistes have to book a studio to go and practice Instead of multiplexes we need diverse cultural spaces and multipurpose venuesQ The Supreme Courtrsquos Section 66A verdict earlier this week was cheered by all Your commentsA The way different people came together to work on this was phenomenal But I think we are getting carried away as people can still file a charge under Section 295 because you made a joke about religion People can still file under Section 153 because they think there is incitementQ How has the Seinfeld show fiasco affected your and to some extent the countryrsquos standing in the international arts and culture communityA The Seinfeld incident has become a joke in the international community of agents I have received emails asking me lsquoAre you kidding mersquo The kind of nonsense that happened around it was something right out of a Seinfeld episode The big artiste will always get scared because they plan eight or 10 months before and around the event Luckily the show in Mumbai was a oneoff but if the artiste was in between a multicountry tour it would have ruined everything The other day for an event somebody asked me lsquoAre you sure the show will happenrsquo Sometimes they are serious and sometimes they are sarcasticQ How do you deal with setbacks of this magnitude Humour seems to be a defence mechanismA Absolutely We have been through a lot of sht mdash we had an NH7 event blocked by a Kisan morcha Authorities sold our tickets in black and we were even lathicharged during the Enrique show But in terms of attitude nothing has changed You canrsquot let something like this deter you because then they will winNew layer