Here’s sad news for all the fans of AIB as the company is broke and their YouTube channel “dead for the foreseeable future.” In the recent statement released by the popular comedy group, they confirmed Gursimran Khamba’s exit from AIB. On the other hand, Khamba too announced his new venture. For those unversed, Khamba was accused of sexual harassment by an unidentified woman in 2018.
AIB posted a long statement on their social media handle giving fans update about their current status. They informed that they don't have the money to run the business and that's why they had to take some tough decisions like sacking their staff overnight and shutting down operations. The statement also revealed that the temporary ban on Tanmay Bhat has been lifted but he will not return as the CEO of the company, thereby getting dissociated from AIB. Tanmay was accused of being in the know how about Khamba's sexual misconduct and not taking any action against him.
Read AIB’s full statement below:
It’s been a long several months for us at AIB. But before we get to the updates, we’d just like to say thank you to everyone who reached out to us. While we may have not been able to reply to everyone, please know that we are immensely grateful.
After the events of early October, things moved fast. Almost all of our partners hit freeze on future associations, while others pulled out of active projects effective immediately. All of this hit revenue hard.
We’ve always prided ourselves on being a hundred percent independent, creator-owned company. We’ve been free to choose our own destiny and set our own content standards as a result of this independence. However, the flip-side to this is that with business going to zero, the lack of revenue inflow made it impossible for us, as owners. to sustain outgoing costs.
To be clear, we weren’t randomly reckless or fast and loose with our money. We had invested a lot of our profits over the last few years - including those from our personal individual projects - into building the content house of our dreams. But with no incoming revenue and operational costs piling up, we had to make some hard, and unfortunately permanent, decisions.
We had to let our office space and entire team go overnight. Production, creative, admin, all of it. This was particularly hard not just because making people laugh with us is a ton of fun, but because we had to say goodbye to some of the finest minds in the field, people we’d built dreams with for many years. One small point of pride in all this for us is that with the work they’d done at AIB, not one of them struggled to find another job. However, to that end, the AIB YouTube channel is for all intents and purposes, dead for the foreseeable future - there will be no new sketches anytime soon. It sucks, but it is what it is. If and when we decide to release other content on the channel (for e.g. stand-up clips). you will be the first to know.
We’d also like to state that we at AIB have had an IC and anti-harassment system in place from the start. However, we recognise that the culture at work may not have been perfect and simply put, we need to be better. To that end, we maintain that Tanmay Bhat’s lapse of judgement regarding Utsav Chakraborty was egregious. As a result, even though Tanmay Bhat’s suspension has been lifted. he will no longer hold the position of CEO.
With regards to Gursimran Khamba, an External Committee (EC) was appointed to look into the allegations made against him in October. The EC comprised of two experienced senior members -a senior partner at a law firm and a diversity consultant - and its mandate was to conduct a fair investigation into the matter. As required in such cases, the proceedings remain confidential.
However, during the course of the investigation, we were informed that Gursimran Khamba had stepped away from the process, citing issues with the procedure. The EC was unable to conclude the investigation on account of his withdrawal. Given these circumstances, Gursimran Khamba will no longer be involved in operations at AIB. and will be working independent of us.
Rohan Joshi and Ashish Shakya will continue to manage the remaining affairs at AIB, but will also be pursuing solo interests in the coming future.
While we may not have a complete road map yet, we are sure of one thing going forward - we never want to stop entertaining. Making people laugh has been the great privilege of our lives and we hope to be able to keep doing that. In whatever new form the future holds for us. So once again, thank you for letting us into your world. It has been an honour.
On the other hand, Khamba posted a long long note on social media announcing his solo venture. The statement read, “The past 7 months have been extremely challenging but eye-opening for both me and my family. An allegation was made by someone with whom I shared a deep personal relationship. Since the allegation surfaced, an informal committee was set up to look into it. The committee constituted was neither a court/ tribunal nor an internal complaints committee set up under the POSH Act. Nevertheless, because I had nothing to hide. I voluntarily chose to participate and began by extending all possible cooperation to this committee. However, this process which lasted 4 months was replete with procedural lapses and did not follow principles of natural justice. Despite my repeated requests to follow due process, these lapses continued. At this stage. I requested the committee to recuse itself and a fresh committee to be constituted. My request was denied and hence I was left with no choice but to withdraw from the enquiry. Till date, I maintain that I am happy to cooperate with any committee that is constituted fairly and follows principles of natural justice.”
On the other hand, Khamba posted a long long note on social media announcing his solo venture. The statement read, “The past 7 months have been extremely challenging but eye-opening for both me and my family. An allegation was made by someone with whom I shared a deep personal relationship. Since the allegation surfaced, an informal committee was set up to look into it. The committee constituted was neither a court/ tribunal nor an internal complaints committee set up under the POSH Act. Nevertheless, because I had nothing to hide. I voluntarily chose to participate and began by extending all possible cooperation to this committee. However, this process which lasted 4 months was replete with procedural lapses and did not follow principles of natural justice. Despite my repeated requests to follow due process, these lapses continued. At this stage. I requested the committee to recuse itself and a fresh committee to be constituted. My request was denied and hence I was left with no choice but to withdraw from the enquiry. Till date, I maintain that I am happy to cooperate with any committee that is constituted fairly and follows principles of natural justice.”
The statement further read, “The silver lining, however is that through all of this. I got a chance to reflect and think about what I’m truly passionate about, who I want to work with and what I’d want the next chapter of my life to be. With that - I am thrilled to announce the launch of my new venture Light@27!
Light@27 is a comedy consultancy offering content and strategy solutions across live and digital media. My new team and I have a host of exciting long form content projects in the pipeline – details of which I will be sharing with you soon!”
Explaining why he chose to name his new venture Light@27, he said, “Why Light@27? When I started doing stand-up comedy I always used to to do a 30 minutes set. And 27 minutes was when I used to ask for the stage light to be shown –acting as a prompt for me to launch into my strongest act. It’s now time to launch into the act.”
Image Source : Starunfolded