Love it or hate it, but Bollywood is simply difficult to ignore. There is hardly anything one can do about it.
But one brave soldier created Bollywood Gandu and decided to give it back to Bollywood.
The man behind the Twitter account is comedian Karan Talwar, who likes to describe himself as "Akshay Kumar's laser hair remover". Quite a job he has done there!
Talwar gets his high by taking a dig at anything and everything Bollywood.
To join protest against intolerance @juniorbachchan to return his Masala Award for Entertainer of the Year.
— Karan Talwar (@BollywoodGandu) October 28, 2015Around three years ago, Talwar started Bollywood Gandu on the micro-blogging site.
"I was pissed with Bollywood. The content was appallingly poor", he says. He wanted a platform to put across his thoughts, with a dose of his humour. And the account gave him just that.
"Even just 4-5 years ago people rarely dissed celebrities in public. When a star did something stupid people joked about in private. Social media has changed all that and in I've been a part of that movement. Now it Is accepted to say 'Look, they are not awesome'. Saying that, I've been cursed at more than I'd like to remember," says Talwar.
The idea of Bollywood Gandu is rooted in how Bollywood actors and their entourage behave.
"I was once attending a party where a man came up to me and introduced himself as the friend of a popular actor. Can you believe that? Someone introducing themselves as another person", he asks.
One of the first stars that Bollywood Gandu took a dig at was Sonam Kapoor. Today she is one among the 4,44,000 Twitter followers that the account can boast of.
Talwar started a Bollywood Gandu Facebook account in January last year and at at present has over 3,64,000 likes on the page. He also realized that "it more was difficult to develop a fan base on Twitter. It is time consuming. Whereas Facebook has a far greater reach. It is incredible."
Bollywood Gandu's popularity rides on the content that it serves to its audience. Talwar's creations include anything that catches his fancy at the moment, revolving mostly around Bollywood- from photoshopped images to videos he creates and one-liners that can give you laugh-tremors.
"My content is very random, instant. Anything that catches my attention can be made into a jokes", he asserts.
Talwar, a serious professional, is a busy comedian- he is the founder of Schitz En Giggles (SNG) Comedy group, an improv and sketch comedy troupe. His group also handles a YouTube page where comedy videos are created and uploaded regularly- one of them called "The Dope".
A multi-talented individual, Talwar, who was a corporate professional at one point, has also worked with a few popular names- including Ghanta Awards, which rewards the worst of Bollywood, and Koffee with Karan- along with co-creating "Gandu Nights" and "Filmfail Awards".
Talwar says he however does not let his fame get to him and credits the success of his creations to his audience.
"At first it was a shock for people, simply because I spoke my mind. It helps having an innate sense of humour. One difference was that I tagged people whom I joked on. Slowly even celebs started to respond back and I've had some incredibly fun repartee with them," he says.
And it is his audience's reaction which drives him. "A comedian can't work in vacuum. It won't work without an audience. And it excites me to see their reaction. When I know or see people are smiling or laughing on my jokes, that warmth, especially on stage, it is worth everything I do. I don't even take it as work. I am doing something that I like doing. That sometimes I get paid for it is incredible," he says.
Over the years, Talwar has picked up a few tricks of the trade too and learnt from his experiences. Narrating an incident that taught him a lesson in creating and sticking to certain limits in his profession, Talwar says, "I once wrote something after an actress committed suicide. I later got a call from a director asking if I knew what I was doing. Since then I am careful about what I write. I stay away from gossips. A good comedian is someone who can say something serious in a funny way. However, most guys like to just play with puns," he says.
Ranbear Kapoor. pic.twitter.com/eK6SSD4cf7
— Karan Talwar (@BollywoodGandu) July 16, 2014What the future holds
His work over the years has garnered him a lot of praises and some criticism too. "Farah Khan blocked me on Twitter amongst many others," he quips saying he takes all of it in his stride.
Talking about the future of comedy in India, Talwar says "Right now what we do is alternative comedy and this is becoming very popular across India- especially at the metros. But it scares me to think what would happen if it were to get mainstream someday."
For now, he plans to travel, along with his comedy group, across India in the coming months and capture their journey. "We want to take our sketch show on the road and show the rest of the country what we can do on stage," he says.
Though he conitunes to make fun of Bollywood, he feels Hindi movies are getting better and in some distant future he could write a script for a movie, but only on his terms.
This is an updated version of the article which was first published on The News Minute on August 3, 2014.