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Freedom of Expression.Take Two

Updated on: 12 February,2015 06:01 AM IST  | 
Malavika Sangghvi |

No one like Aamir to bring a fresh perspective and some nuance to the AIB Roast debate. The superstar actor-producer was asked if he endorsed the recent roasting of Bolly personalities KJo, Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh

Freedom of Expression.Take Two

Aamir Khan

No one like Aamir to bring a fresh perspective and some nuance to the AIB Roast debate. The superstar actor-producer was asked if he endorsed the recent roasting of Bolly personalities KJo, Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh.


"I have seen clips of it. And the night the Roast happened, Karan Johar and Arjun Kapoor had come and told me about all the jokes, etc. I was most disappointed in what I was hearing. I completely believe in freedom of speech but we have to understand we all have a certain responsibility," he said at a live forum, which saw the likes of Super Cop Julio Ribeiro also on the podium.


Aamir Khan Ranveer Singh
Aamir Khan and Ranveer Singh


What’s more, Khan commented on the colour jibes which we too had voiced concern on these pages a few days ago. "I don’t think jokes about the colour of skin or one’s sexuality are funny at all," he said.

Karan Johar Arjun Kapoor
Karan Johar and Arjun Kapoor

However, like all sensible people, Khan maintains AIB’s right to freedom of expression. "I’ve also seen a lot of AIB shaming and lynching happening publicly. I don’t believe in that either.

Who are we to ban anything? If I don’t like something you’ve done, I should communicate it to you in strong and firm words. Who am I to decide how anyone is going to conduct himself or her?"

Hear hear!

My fave after party?
Word comes in that the popular ‘MyFav awards’ created to honour DJs and music producers each year will celebrate its after party tonight at Nido in Bandra.

Vishal Shetty
Vishal Shetty

The brainchild of Vishal Shetty, one of the original partners of Mumbai’s happening nightclub of the nineties ‘Fire N Ice’, the awards are divided into sections with categories ranging from ‘DJ of the year’ to ‘club of the year’ and ‘music festival of the year’.

Anish Sood
Anish Sood

Unlike the past, this year the winners have been already announced online after voting was closed on the website a couple of days ago. Some of the big winners this year include Goan boy Anish Sood, drum and bass artist ‘Nucleya’ and Kohra as Artist.

And going by past year’s turnout, tonight’s after party is expected to be very hot and happening according to a source. "It attracts some of the biggest names of the music scene as they all come out to support the fraternity. The only question with so many stars present, who will get control of the console tonight..." he says.

The anti-right party
According to our sources, there was a great and spontaneous eruption of joy over the weekend to celebrate AAP’s victory at a prominent Delhi-based documentary filmmaker’s over the weekend.

Kiran Bedi Sunil Sethi
Kiran Bedi and Sunil Sethi

"She sent 25 texts but more than a 125 people streamed in journalists, artists, lawyers, activists and fashion people all the vociferous anti-Right brigade," says our friend, the Delhi based columnist and author Sunil Sethi whose recent column on NDTV.com titled ‘Delhi Has Enjoyed Humiliating the BJP’ more or less makes the point that it is the ‘sentiment of "let’s put the BJP its place" or "bring them down a peg or two" especially after the party's seemingly unstoppable juggernaut in national and state elections last year (that) has been a key factor in determining AAP’s spectacular triumph.’

"It was an extraordinary eruption of spontaneous goodwill another of those seminal moments when Delhi feels it can show the way forward politically," posted Sethi about the impromptu celebration. "People kept pouring in."

As for Kiran Bedi, whose pink safari suits and public buffoonery acted like the proverbial red flag in the face of the Delhi electorate, "That she lost from Krishna Nagar in East Delhi, former stronghold of BJP’s best-known local leader, Dr Harsh Vardhan, now a Union minister, underscores the degree of schadenfreude prevailing in the constituency: it derived malicious pleasure in ensuring her humiliating defeat."

Ouch!

A different kind of politician
The curious thing about the AAP victory is that because its supporters and leaders are cut from such a different cloth from the run-of-the-mill political worker observers have noted that there is a marked absence of chest thumping, braggadocio and gloating after its spectacular victory in the recent Delhi hustings.

Arvind Kejriwal
Arvind Kejriwal

"Those who have been its well wishers and supporters have such a fine sense of decency and decorum that they are loathing to brandish their allegiance in their moment of victory," says one of the party’s long-time and silent supporters. "It’s the political lightweights and opportunists who are now trying to jump on the AAP bandwagon with their ‘we were always with AAP’ platitudes," he said.

"And from Arvind Kejriwal to the humblest party worker, we see through them. After all, today everything - the slightest tweet, the smallest sound byte or the tiniest article of opposition to AAP and the muffler man, is preserved in cyber space for all to see," he said about the sudden swelling of party support.

Sleaze alert!
Our friend with the very big mouth and the razor-sharp tongue informs that this leathery, middle-aged hirsute-ly challenged, seldom-sober fashion designer was up to his old tricks at a recent music event that took place near Mumbai.

"He was trying to get touchy-feely with all the young women in the VIP section, boasting about how he had the right contacts at the event and had ‘all access’ to take them backstage," she said. "He was also overheard asking one of the girls young enough to be his daughter for her number proclaiming in a loud belligerent tone that he had ‘a fetish for phone-sex.’

And sadly for him when no one, least of all the young lady in question. appeared impressed he proceeded to embark on the oldest trick in the book: "I can make you famous if you work with me," he slurred, "I practically run this fest."

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