Demonetisation effect: AIB's satirical take makes you laugh and think at the same time

It was only time that All India Bakchod (AIB) released a satirical take on the demonetisation effect. Their video covers almost all the ground, addressing the diverse range of issues and conjectures that have flooded the public discourse in the past few weeks. [caption id=“attachment_3140782” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Tanmay Bhat in a still from the video[/caption] The video starts with how three classes - the rich, the common man and the bank employees - have reacted to the move. The rich, represented by the director of the video Tanmay Bhat, are depicted as fooling their domestic helps by handing them the old Rs 500 note, storing their black money in the form of gold and ordering their servants to stand in the bank queues to exchange the old currency notes with the new ones. On the other hand, the person representing the middle class, is seen complaining to a chaiwallah (no brownie points for guessing whom this figure represents) only to have his complaints fall on the deaf ears of the tea seller. Watch out for the bit when the man snaps at the chaiwallah by saying, “t_u chai bech na, politics me kyun ghus raha hai”_ (why don’t you sell tea? Stop getting into politics!), yet another indirect message to ’the one who must not be named.’ The bank employee is seen sweating it out by managing the frenzy in the banks. He is also shown complaining about overtime and working on Sundays and at the same time, he is busy delaying the customers in a part which gets a bit stretched. However, the exaggeration is used as an ornamental device in the video in order to denote the extent to which the Central Government has been unreasonable in the execution of demonetisation. Also, watch out for a shirtless special cameo by fitness expert Ranveer Allahbadia in the climax scene. The highlight of the video is how the poor has been ignored or not represented in society. A poor man appears intermittently in the video and is seen trying to embrace the change by coping up with all the hassles that demonetisation brought. He does so keeping in consideration the greater good of the country but succumbs to weakness in the climax and dies consequently. The people around him in a bank queue get emotional for a few seconds before they run back to the counter at the announcement of the arrival of bundles of the new Rs 500 notes. Thus, AIB’s satirical take on demonetisation encompasses almost all the issues related to the historic move by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It highlights the fact that while people are hopeful about the decision as a solution to the black money plague, demonetisation might not be India’s cup of tea for dealing with this widespread evil.