As the controversy surrounding comedian Pranit More’s viral “Rs 370 biryani” clip continues to dominate social media conversations, several voices from India’s comedy community have weighed in on the debate. Among them were comedians Rohan Joshi and Aditi Mittal, both of whom used their Instagram to reflect on the incident and the wider attitudes it has brought to the surface.
Rohan Joshi said his first encounter with the controversy was through social media posts mentioning “370 rupees”, leading him to briefly assume the discussion was political in nature. “The first whiff I caught of it was reels from women on my timeline talking about ‘370 rupees.’ However, after understanding the context, he said he realised it was yet another example of deeply entrenched misogynistic thinking. Rather than analysing the audience member’s remarks himself, Rohan said many women had already articulated the issue more thoughtfully than he could. I’m not going to dissect the dude’s statement and all the shitty things it implies, because I feel like people (mostly women) on my timeline have already had brilliant, incisive takes on it.”
According to Rohan, the incident’s significance lies not in its shock value but in what it reveals about attitudes that often remain hidden from public view. Comparing it to a student asking an uncomfortable but revealing question in class, he argued that such moments expose the amount of work still needed to challenge regressive thinking. “It’s like when your teacher in school said, ‘Any questions? Ask. Whatever it is. There’s no such thing as a stupid question!’”
He further argued that the audience member’s willingness to publicly boast about feeling entitled to a woman because he paid for a meal reflected a broader problem of male entitlement. “The ‘male loneliness epidemic’ is a cage of our own making, its bars forged of our own entitlement and lack of empathy and inability to process women as whole people who don’t owe us shit.”
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‘Humiliating women is often used as a form of male bonding’
Meanwhile, comedian Aditi Mittal also addressed the controversy through a series of videos posted on her Instagram Stories. She argued that such conversations are far more common than many people would like to believe. “I can’t say that when I saw that video, I was surprised at all, because this is how these environments are. This is how people talk. Whether it’s not on a show, whether it’s on a show, whether the cameras are on or off, I can guarantee you that right now there are about 200 videos on the Indian internet with this exact same kind of content going around. The only difference is that you all happened to catch this one, watched it, and got upset about it.”
She went on to discuss what she described as a recurring cycle of outrage and accountability online. “We’ve seen this hype cycle play out, right? Somebody or something catches the fancy of the internet, everyone gets pissed, and then people say, ‘The women must speak up.’ Then five women will put themselves on the line and speak up. And then they’ll be getting gaalis for the rest of eternity. What happens next? These people disappear from the internet for a couple of days, weeks, or months, depending on what they feel like, and then they come back. Then they’ll be cast in some big reality show that everybody is watching.”
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In a separate observation, Aditi Mittal reflected on what she described as the collective humiliation of women being used as a form of social bonding among men. “I do know this, though: the humiliation of a woman, the shared humiliation of a woman, is a very common male bonding ritual. There may be six men in a room. They may have their differences in caste, class, looks, or whatever else. But the one thing they can come together over is destroying a woman who is different from them. Why do you think so many incidents of violence against women in India have the word ‘gang’ in front of them? Because it’s done together. This ritual of humiliating a single woman as a group is actually very, very common.”
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What is the ‘Rs 370 biryani’ video?
The controversy centres around a clip that has come to be known online as the ‘Rs 370 biryani’ video. In the footage, a male audience member recounted taking a woman on a date and paying Rs 370 for a plate of biryani. According to his account, when the woman wanted to leave afterwards, he felt cheated because he believed he had earned the right to physical intimacy by paying for the meal. Responding to the story on stage, Pranit described it as “peak Gurgaon content.” In another clip from the same show, the man shared graphic details about their physical encounter after taking the woman to what he described as a “dark park.” The audience laughed along, as did Pranit. At the end of the segment, the comedian awarded the man Rs 5,000 for his storytelling.
Pranit More’s apology and fallout
The clips drew widespread criticism after they began circulating on Instagram, with many users calling the remarks misogynistic and deeply troubling. Amid the backlash, reports emerged that the audience member had been fired from his workplace. Pranit later issued a public apology, distancing himself from the comments made during the show. He said the audience member’s views did not reflect his own and acknowledged that he should have responded differently in the moment. “Looking back, I should have challenged the remark instead of laughing and moving on. That was a lapse in judgment on my part.”
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On Wednesday, followers of the comedian also noticed that his Instagram account had been deactivated.
