It took one comment by a writer and comic on comedian Utsav Chakraborty's tweet on sexual harassment to open a can of worms, and before one knew it, the joke was on the stand-up community. Since then, several comedians have been implicated in the #MeToo movement, some of whom have offered apologies, some have put up point-by-point rebuttals of allegations made by anonymous accounts that seem to reek of ulterior motives, some have stepped down from their respective positions, and some have decided to lie low.

Barring a few exceptions, no big names from comedy have performed in Mumbai since revelations started pouring on social media, which, along with Tanushree Dutta's allegations, led to the calling out of names from many other fields including journalism, film and the arts.