Comedian Pranit More has been the talk of the town this month after an audience member at one of his shows managed to do the impossible: unite the internet in disgust over a Rs 370 biryani.

By now, most people know the clip. Himanshu, 22, a Gurgaon-based web developer, recounted a date where he paid for a biryani worth Rs 370 before going on to describe his encounter with the woman in a manner that was, at best, crass and, at worst, deeply disturbing. The clip exploded online. Which isn’t particularly surprising. We’ve seen this movie before.

A comedian says something controversial. A podcaster says something controversial. An audience member says something controversial. The internet gets angry. Think pieces are commissioned. Hashtags trend. Eventually, someone invokes freedom of speech while someone else demands accountability. Indian comedy, especially over the last decade, has practically been built on this cycle. From AIB and Tanmay Bhatt to Samay Raina and Kunal Kamra, public outrage has become as much a part of the ecosystem as punchlines.

But what surprised me wasn’t the clip itself. It was the reaction to it.

Instead of endless debates about misogyny, consent, or whether Pranit More should have shut the man down on stage, my social media feeds quickly filled up with women telling other women to pay for their own meals. Female creators urged women to split the bill, get better jobs, earn more money, and become financially independent. The conversation had somehow shifted from a man describing a woman in degrading terms to women discussing how to avoid finding themselves in that situation in the first place.

And that’s when I started wondering: where was the outrage machine that I had become so familiar with? The one that dissected every word uttered by comedians, filed FIRs over jokes, and subjected creators and their families to weeks of scrutiny. More importantly, why did the burden of this conversation seem to fall on women rather than the men who created it?

Because the Rs 370 biryani controversy isn’t just a story about one man’s remarks. It’s a story about who gets punished, and how much they get punished.

The fallout was swift. Within days of the clip going viral, Himanshu found himself unemployed. Predictably, the internet was divided. Some called it accountability. Others called it mob justice. LinkedIn philosophers emerged from the woodwork to remind us that a person’s private life should not affect their professional life, while others argued that the company had every right to distance itself from remarks that had become national news.

I’ll admit, I struggle to sympathise with the “mob justice” argument here.

Not because I believe every offensive statement should cost someone their livelihood, but because what happened at that comedy show wasn’t a poorly worded joke or an unpopular opinion. It was a man casually narrating a story in which spending Rs 370 on a biryani seemed to entitle him to something in return. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the clip that circulated online was actually the sanitised version. The remarks that followed were far more graphic, degrading, and disturbing than the viral excerpts most people encountered.

Companies are not courts of law. They don’t determine guilt or innocence. They determine risk. And when an employee becomes the face of a controversy that has half the internet questioning their values, companies tend to do what companies have always done: protect themselves.

You can call it harsh. You can call it corporate self-preservation. But consequences were always going to follow. The real question is whether they stopped at the right person.

The more I thought about it, the more this controversy reminded me of the Samay Raina saga from earlier this year.

Back then, a tasteless joke made on a comedy show snowballed into a national controversy. FIRs were filed. Politicians weighed in. Creators who hadn’t even uttered the offending line found themselves dragged into the mess simply because they happened to be in the room. Families were harassed. Endless court appearances followed. The punishment quickly outgrew the joke itself.

The Pranit More controversy couldn’t be more different.

Here, we weren’t dealing with a hypothetical scenario or a poorly thought-out punchline. We were dealing with a man narrating what he claimed was a real-life interaction, one in which paying Rs 370 for a biryani somehow featured in his understanding of what he was owed afterwards.

And yet, the outrage machine felt oddly restrained.

Himanshu lost his job, and frankly, the consequences were inevitable. But what about everyone else? What about the comedian who laughed, labelled it “peak Gurgaon content” and uploaded it for millions to consume? What about the ecosystem that transformed a disturbing interaction into viral content?

Instead, the conversation quickly moved on. A social media apology was issued. The comments were filled with people praising accountability. The internet seemed satisfied.

Which is what makes this so fascinating. In India, a joke involving parents can trigger FIRs, political outrage, and months of public scrutiny. But when a controversy centres on misogyny, sexual entitlement, and the casual degradation of a woman, our appetite for outrage suddenly becomes far more selective.

Apparently, we know exactly where to draw the line. The only problem is that nobody can explain why the line keeps moving.

The more I watched this controversy unfold, the less interested I became in Himanshu, Pranit More, or even the firing debate.

What fascinated me was the reaction.

We are clearly capable of recognising misogyny when we see it. Nobody watched that clip and walked away thinking it was a healthy attitude towards women. Nobody genuinely believes paying Rs 370 for a biryani entitles someone to intimacy. Yet somehow, our outrage never quite reaches the same intensity when the target is a woman.

Instead, we negotiate. We contextualise. We move on.

A comedian apologises. The internet accepts it. The algorithm finds a new controversy. The cycle continues.

Compare that to almost any controversy involving religion, nationalism, parents, culture, or “Indian values”. Suddenly, every word is scrutinised. FIRs are filed. Careers are dissected. Television studios erupt into primetime debates. We become remarkably efficient at identifying offence when it affects institutions we hold sacred.

Women, apparently, don’t make that list.

During the same-sex marriage hearings, one argument repeatedly made before the Supreme Court was that such unions were not in accordance with the social fabric and traditions of India. Fair enough. But if we are so invested in protecting Indian culture, is this culture? Is casually treating a woman as something owed in return for a meal more representative of Indian values than a joke about parents?

The Rs 370 biryani controversy exposed something uncomfortable. Not that misogyny exists – we already knew that. It exposed how quickly we forgive it, excuse it, and move on from it. We are smart enough to recognise these attitudes as toxic. We just haven’t decided that they deserve the same outrage as everything else.

And perhaps that’s why these jokes never really disappear. We keep making space for them.