Those who are familiar with the stand-up comedy scenes in India, all of them know of Tanmay Bhat. Tanmay Bhat is an Indian stand-up comedian and the former CEO of AIB. He is also one of the initial stand-up comedians in India. He is widely popular for his comical take on political and controversial subjects.

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The roots

Tanmay Bhat was born and brought up in Mumbai. Tanmay is a comedian, producer, scriptwriter, and actor, he is the jack of all trades. Tanmay was initially pursuing marine biology but destiny seemed to have other plans for him. He faced a lot of criticism for being overweight and therefore has said in interviews before that he started using comedy as a defense mechanism. During this time, he realised that his calling was to make people laugh.

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How did Tanmay Bhat become popular?

Tanmay started doing a lot of open mikes and stand-up comedy shows from 2009. His quirky punch-lines garnered him accolades from the audience. Tanmay Bhat was also rated as ‘Top 10 Comics’ by a national daily. Tanmay won a comedy contest held by Vir Das, a fellow comedian. He then joined their team Wierdass Comedy and opened for Vir Das’s show, Walking On Broken Das.

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The turning point in his career came when he started AIB with a fellow comedian, Gursimran Khamba in 2012. What was initially started as a YouTube channel later went on to become one of India's most popular creative agency. Contemporary comedians Rohan Joshi and Ashish Shakya joined the group later. AIB turned out to a nationwide success until the company dissolved in May 2019.

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The downfall

In 2018, the #MeToo movement took over the world. The movement shook everybody and brought to light the alleged misdemeanours and misconducts of several people. Tanmay Bhat was one of them. He was accused of knowing about Utsav Chakraborty’s alleged acts of sexually harassing some women and not doing anything about it. Utsav Chakraborty was publicly called out on Twitter by several women for inappropriately texting them and inappropriate behaviour at the workplace.

Tanmay Bhat took to Instagram on July 2019 to publicly address the audience about the issue. He posted a series of videos on social media in which he claimed that he has been diagnosed with clinical depression. He opened up about the struggles he went through from October 2018. Since the accusations, Tanmay Bhat has preferred to stay away from the public eye.

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