Just a joke!

Bollywood composer Vishal Dadlani feels too much is being made of the spoof video on icons Lata Mangeshkar and Sachin Tendulkar by comedian Tanmay Bhat. Reasons Dadlani: “Sachin and Lataji are deities in their spheres. A tasteless joke is not going to affect their aura.” The composer, currently ruling the charts with his compositions for the Amitabh Bachchan-Vidya Balan starrer Te3n, feels there are double standards at work in how the entertainment industry has reacted to Bhat’s “joke” and the way they react to other similar spoofy attempts by comedians.

"Principles are only worth anything when we stand by them even when they're inconvenient. When Kiku Sharda was jailed for a joke, we stood against the absurdity of it all. Suddenly, we are no better than those who were baying for Kiku's blood," he said. He also wonders if the censor board is right in assuming that audiences lack a uniform maturity. "We have seen bizarre decisions coming from the censor board, using the excuse that our audience isn't mature enough. Considering this reaction to an irrelevant Snapchat post, perhaps they were right." —IANS