‘Pune Used To Be One Of My Favourite Cities...’: Stand-Up Comic Abhijit Ganguly Recalls Show Disrupted By ‘Rich, Entitled’ Drunk Women
Stand-up comic Abhijit Ganguly, on Wednesday, in a long thread on X (formerly Twitter), shared an incident where "rich, entitled and badly behaved" drunk women disrupted his show in Pune, which he said used to be "one of his favourite cities".
He wrote, "The entitlement of the urban upper class never ceases to amuse me. Last Saturday, I had a show at a pub in Pune where there was a group of middle-aged women who kept referring to themselves as GP Divas — I'm assuming GP to be their society's name. The show was at 6 pm and the group had been drinking since 4 pm at the venue itself."
Ganguly said the women were "loud and obnoxious" and kept heckling throughout the opening act. When he got on stage, their behaviour was still the same — loudly talking amongst themselves, heckling, disrupting all ways possible.
"Anyone who's been at any of my shows would know I do not lose it easily and try to handle things in the most amicable manner possible. Forty-five minutes into my act, by when I had tried to handle this drunk group every way possible — saam, daam, dand, bhed; giving attention, reasoning funnily, pacifying jokingly, takedowns — it just kept on going. At that point, I couldn't help myself and just asked them to please leave the show. This, of course, hurt their sentiments and they were aghast. Because, of course, the idea that some rich and entitled hold — that with a ticket you have simply bought the performer, the venue, and can behave in any way possible."
"There was some to and fro and they said things, to which of course I replied back. When these guys left the room, there was a huge cheer by the audience and every single person was relieved. The show continued, and even after the awkward moment, the next 15 minutes were the best in the show so far," he added.
Ganguly stated that the drunk women created a ruckus outside the venue and demanded an apology. "Fifteen minutes later, in the middle of a joke, I see the organiser rep — a young girl who was clearly frazzled — walk up to me on stage. She said those women were creating a ruckus and were demanding an apology in the middle of the show. The audience was also taken aback again."
"By this time, the drunk divas group had barged into the room again, shouting 'Apologise!' otherwise they'll do whatnot. Of course, insults were traded between the whole drunk divas group and me. They were like, 'My husband is so and so, you don't know what I can do,' while wagging their fingers at me. And I was like, 'Ma'am, I crack jokes on so-and-so politicians. Do you think a kitty party group will scare me?'"
"They commented on my career and made personal comments on my wife based on things I had said in my set, and naturally, I didn't hold back either. A rather robust one from the group was screaming, 'You don't know what I'll do to you,' to which I responded, 'Ma'am, just don't sit on me.' Well, that got them going real good," he wrote.
The ruckus and the trading of insults continued for some more time. The drunk women left later after getting embarrassed.
At the end of his thread, Ganguly said that Pune used to be one of his favourite cities to perform in, with a super intelligent audience, fun as well as sporty. "I would read the recent splurge of articles on the behaviour of Pune rich and wonder — this doesn't seem to be fitting with my image of Pune. But it sadly seems things seem to be changing. The rich, entitled and badly behaved seem to have gulped down another city," he concluded.
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