No country for jesters, writes Twinkle Khanna

In every court, there have been jesters — to juggle, to make people giggle — to scan a desolate plain and look for a laughter-filled oasis. Relief from the scorching sun of pedantic prose, jesters would perform quick tumbles; because isn’t it true that sometimes you have to be upside-down to see things the right side up? Often, they would land on fertile land and occasionally, on sinking sand.

But there was a rule in this falling house of cards. The jokers must not turn their sharp, mirthful eyes towards the king, or for that matter, even the queen of hearts.

A lesson that Tanmay Bhat recently learned, while snacking between meals. He decided to devour our nightingale Lataji, who some consider the real national bird of India rather than the peacock. Though, personally, I did not find the video funny, I am glad that last week, the Mumbai police finally decided not to file an FIR against the comedian, because in the words of Oscar Wilde, ‘I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death, your right to make an ass of yourself.’

Tanmay Bhat had a narrow escape, unlike poor Kiku Sharda, who was arrested and spent weeks in jail for mimicking Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh on his show.

The man of the house keeps warning me that if I don’t learn to be more politically correct, that may end up being my fate as well, as I, too, have already had a few run-ins with the frenzied legions that belong to various politicians and godmen, due to my columns and Twitter wisecracks.

The last nuclear meltdown took place when observing a few connections between Baba Ramdev and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar — namely, their common grouse with the Nobel Prize, beards and yoga — I posted a satirical one-liner on Twitter. There was an explosion that led to the enlightened teachers, followers and a member of the board of directors of the Art Of Living, threatening me that they will make sure that millions of their followers boycott the man of the house’s next film.

I had made a joke and like Tanmay Bhat or Kiku Sharda’s jests, ‘funny’ or ‘lousy’ is probably the only opinion a joke deserves. But how could I have forgotten that India is a country where everything is sacred except laughter and where self-righteous bullies are always on the prowl looking to gag all the gag-makers?

These bullies may change their colours from white to orange to green; their names may change as well — bhakts, fans, followers, devotees, sanghis, left-wing, right-wing — but their intent is always the same. Don’t like what a person is saying? Collect a mob and threaten him or her into silence. This is the stark reality of our times where a comic act can easily be cited as a criminal one.

But let’s go back a few centuries to a tale published in 1837 called The Emperor’s New Clothes. The Hans Christian Andersen story is about clever weavers who tell the king that they will make him a fine garment, a garment so superior that it cannot be seen by foolish people. They send him on a parade, clad in a loincloth where everyone including the emperor pretends that they can see the magnificent robes. Till a little boy points out, ‘But he isn’t wearing anything at all!’

In our country, with numerous self-appointed emperors in the fields of spiritualism and politics, the story is diametrically opposite. Here, the emperor claims he is wearing nothing but a simple loincloth, but if carefully examined, is actually dressed, head to toe, in robes made of gleaming gold.

Is that why when the intrinsic truth comes under the humorist’s peculiarly slanted magnifying glass, all the metal heats up and tempers rise? Because jesters now look at kings without stars clouding their eyes?