A ₹370 Plate of Biryani, a Revolting Remark, and a Comedian's Silence - How One Clip Broke the Internet

It started, as so many controversies do these days, with a short video clip. A man at a stand-up show, mic in hand, audience cheering him on. Within hours, that clip had ignited a firestorm that cost one man his job, sent a comedian scrambling for an apology, and pushed the conversation about sexism in Indian comedy spaces back into the spotlight.

What actually happened

At comedian Pranit More's show, an audience member named Himanshu Jangra - a young man from Gurugram - took the mic and began recounting a date he'd gone on. He told the room that after paying ₹370 for biryani, the woman asked him to drop her home. He was surprised - because, as he put it, he had paid ₹370 and intended to "vasool" it, using the word as a crude stand-in for a sexual encounter.

It didn't stop there. Jangra, who said he was 23 and the woman in her late 20s, went on to describe meeting her at a co-working space in Gurugram, claiming she was interested in him, and then described in explicit terms an attempt at physical contact that she clearly did not invite.

Through all of this, no one in the audience - and crucially, not Pranit More himself - objected. The comedian laughed, let it play out, and later shared the clip online as crowdwork content.

The internet responds

Once the video spread, public reaction was swift and furious. Social media users and influencers criticised Jangra for reducing a woman to a transaction, but much of the anger also landed on Pranit More for not only failing to push back, but for amplifying the exchange by posting it himself. The clip was eventually deleted.

Himanshu Jangra was fired from his employer in Gurugram as the controversy mounted.

Pranit More's Instagram account went dark. His profile showed zero followers and zero following, with Instagram displaying the standard message that the page is unavailable - a sign that he had deactivated the account. 

The apology - and why many weren't buying it

More eventually issued a public statement: "I've seen the criticism regarding a recent crowdwork clip. The comments made by the audience member do not reflect my views. Looking back, I should have challenged the remark instead of laughing and moving on. That was a lapse in judgement on my part."

For many, it was too little, too late. Influencer Kusha Kapila was pointed in her response. She questioned the logic of More distancing himself from his audience's views while having actively edited, packaged, and uploaded the clip as content. Her argument: if you platform those views, reward them with applause, and broadcast them to your followers, they are - in some meaningful sense - your views too.

Influencer Dolly Singh was even more direct. In an Instagram post, she laid out exactly what had happened on stage: More had not just let the remarks slide - he had laughed, returned to the subject to ask for more details, calculated the "price of a kiss" at ₹12, and ultimately handed Jangra a ₹5,000 cash prize for being, in More's own words, the funniest person in the room. "Disgusting behaviour," she wrote.

The bigger picture

This isn't the first time Indian stand-up comedy has had to reckon with where the line between crowdwork and cruelty lies. The episode drew comparisons to similar controversies involving Indian content creators, where the defence of "it's just comedy" or "those aren't my views" has repeatedly met a wall of disbelief from audiences who feel that what gets laughed at - and what gets rewarded - says something very real about what is being enabled.

For Pranit More, the fallout has been significant: a deleted clip, a deactivated Instagram, a public apology, and a question that won't go away - not about the ₹370, but about what kind of room he chose to run.

ALSO READ - Who Is Pranit More? The Comedian Behind the '₹370 Ki Biryani' Clip That Broke the Internet