Actress Tannishtha Chatterjee, who had slammed Comedy Nights Bachao for its racial content, has been offered an apology by Colours channel. “It is rather unfortunate that what you had expected to be a fun and novel experience turned out to be traumatic for you on the sets of Comedy Nights Bachao“, said the channel in the statement issued via Twitter.
Dear @TannishthaC
It is rather unfortunate that what you had expected to be a fun and novel experience turned out to be traumatic for you. pic.twitter.com/1iH9A3FBIW— COLORS (@ColorsTV) 28 September 2016
The actress, along with director Leena Yadav and actress Radhika Apte, were on the sets of Comedy Nights Bachao Taaza to promote their film, Parched. However, she walked out of the show when the show’s presenters made racist remarks on her complexion.
“It began with “ aap ko jamun bahut pasand hoga zaroor… kitna jamun khaya aapne bachpan se?” [you must love black plums… how many black plums have you eaten since you were a child?] And went on in that direction… the only thing they could roast about a dark-skinned actress was of course her dark skin. They could identify me only with that,” she had said in a Facebook post which went viral on Wednesday.
In the apology statement, Colours channel pointed out that many of their programmes like Laage Tujhse Lagan and Udaan addressed social issues like racism. “Please be assured that what transpired on the sets of Comedy Nights Bachao is not a reflection of the channel’s philosophy,” it insisted.
The actress replied to the channel’s apology and said, “@ColorsTV thank you for reaching out. But it’s not abt me . N this is not personal. It is abt a prejudice . I wish they had made fun of me.”
Comedian defends the channel
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Meanwhile, comedian Krushna Abhishek, who co-hosts the controversial show, defended Comedy Nights Bachao by chipping in with the disclaimer, “I had asked Tannishtha, if she has seen the show, she said she doesn’t watch TV as such. So, she has no clue about the show. So I took another example and asked her if she had seen AIB Roast? And she hadn’t seen that either. I told her that since it’s a roast, there will be some leg pulling, but we don’t insult. Had we been insulting, the show won’t have come so far.”
“When a show comes, 90 per cent people praise the show, but then 10 per cent say they didn’t like it. So maybe she didn’t like the format,” said Krushna, adding that there were actors who took roasts sportingly. “When Varun Dhawan came for Dilwale, Varun himself came up to me and said that he is very excited and looking forward to the roast. Even Shah Rukh Khan chose to come to our show for Fan,” he added suggesting that it was a simple matter of incompatibility of their sense of humour.
Tannishtha, in her Facebook post, had said that her idea of a roast was formed by American shows like Saturday Nights Live. “My perception of roast was formed by all the SNLs I watched over the years, and the commonly held perception that a roast is a celebratory humour at someone’s expense. It is a mock counter to a toast,” she wrote.