The Rs 370 biryani has done what years of gender discourse, awareness campaigns and social media debates often cannot do. It has exposed how much some men value a woman’s consent and how quickly society is quick to defend them.

By now most people know about the viral clip. A man from Gurugram talked about spending Rs 370 on debt and expecting ‘returns’ on that investment. A return. But. investment. Let that sink in.

As if he had bought shares in a company instead of having dinner with another person. The audience laughed. Comedian Pranit More laughed. Yes, the same person whom you might have seen talking about “values” in Bigg Boss 19 and probably even believed in him?

The clip was edited, uploaded and delivered to millions of people. Gurugram man who told jokes was fired from his job. Some people came to his rescue. The company’s HR tried to portray him as someone who is highly respected in the workplace and deserves a second chance. Case closed?

Not enough. Because the problem was never Rs 370 and it was certainly not the biryani.

The challenge was the belief system under mockery. Which tells men that money spent on women is an investment and the investment is worth the ‘return’. The joke worked because it was based on an idea so old, so familiar, and so deeply ingrained in society that before anyone stopped to ask what exactly they were laughing at, the entire room was laughing.

Here is Pranit More’s apology:

Let’s call it what it was. A rape joke.

Or, if it makes people uncomfortable, a joke built on the threat of sexual assault. A joke whose humor depended on the notion that spending money on a woman resulted in direct and inevitable access to her body.

This distinction matters only to those interested in controlling language rather than examining behavior. As expected, the rescue team arrived within minutes. “it’s just a joke.” “It’s dark humor.” “People are very sensitive.” “It doesn’t reflect their mentality.” Sure.

But if it doesn’t reflect your mindset, why did it make you laugh? And if it doesn’t reflect your mindset, why did you upload it? (Looking at you, Pranit)

No one accidentally turns a clip into content. Someone saw it. Someone edited it. Someone approved it. Someone thought, “This is ridiculous.” Someone thought, “People will like this.” When you reward a comment with laughter, airtime, and virality, you are no longer an audience. You are an active participant. You are a supporter.

What makes the entire episode more uncomfortable is the long clip circulating online. In it, the man explains how he expected an ROI on the money he spent during the date. He describes taking the woman to a park and attempting to put his hand inside her leggings. The eligibility is staggering. He tells the story with the confidence of someone who believes the audience is on his side.

Seeing the laughter, many people in the room found it funny. That’s why the big question is not why one man said it, but why the whole room laughed at it.

Watch the clip again. There is no awkward silence. No visible discomfort. No collective intake of breath. just laugh. Almost like a body. one soul. A punchline. And we should be more concerned about this than that person.

Because misogyny rarely survives through individual villains. It survives by mass approval. It survives when female comedians are judged less for their material and more for their bodies, clothes, relationships, and appearance. It comes alive when the abuse that female creators respond to becomes the story rather than the abuse itself.

Take Kusha Kapila or Apoorva Mukhija for example.

As soon as the divorce took place, Kusha’s personal life became public property. Apoorva has repeatedly found herself at the center of outrage cycles for reacting to comments that male creators often ignore or laugh off. Their reactions are analyzed more than the behavior they direct.

The woman gets angry and becomes bitter. A woman pushes back and she is arrogant. A woman refuses to laugh and she is an attention seeker. A woman calls out misogyny, and suddenly she’s a misogynist.

Male authors, meanwhile, often receive a far more liberal reading. “It’s just stuff.” “It’s just comedy.” “It doesn’t reflect who he really is.” And we are making the same mistake again with Pranit More. Calling someone out on their misogyny is the least thing a self-aware audience can do.

What’s strange is that women are expected to take responsibility for every word they say, while men are constantly made to apologize for words that supposedly don’t represent them. When every discussion about men’s behavior is interrupted by the inevitable chorus of “not all men.”

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Of course, not all men!

But somehow there are always enough people to fill comment sections, comedy clubs, podcast studios, and social media timelines. And this is not limited to just men. There are many women who are ready to laugh at such comments because raising objections is tiring.

This is why the outrage over the price of Rs 370 seems both necessary and surprisingly inadequate.

Necessary because public pushback matters. It was heartening to see that people in different corners of the internet – from Kusha Kapila and Dolly Singh to Elvish Yadav – agreed that there was something wrong with it. Insufficient because it was not an anomaly.

This is the same country where women are still asked what they were wearing, before they were asked what happened. The same country where conversations about consent are derailed by questions about what she drank, why she was there, why she stayed late or who she was with. The same country where marital rape is still not criminalized.

Although perhaps even saying those two words together is enough to start another argument. So was this joke shocking? Disturbing, yes. Revealing, of course. But shocking? Not necessary.

The joke of Rs 370 does not expose the mentality of any marginalized person. This exposed a mainstream. It condensed centuries of rights into a sentence short enough for Instagram and crude enough to go viral.

And maybe that’s why so many people are uncomfortable. Because the villain isn’t just the guy in the clip. It is the culture that taught him that jokes will work. It is the people who rewarded it with laughter and fun. The decision is to turn it into content.

And it’s each of us who treats misogyny as humor, entitlement as confidence, and oppression as a joke until one day the joke doesn’t seem like a joke at all.

So no, it was never about the Rs 370 biryani. It was about the price of a woman’s consent.

The price of biryani is Rs 370. The value of jokes is much higher.