What is the least a man should hope for after a date? A memorable conversation? A few genuine laughs? The possibility that the girl might want to see him again? Once upon a time, those would have been reasonable answers. Today, however, some seem to believe that if a date does not end in physical intimacy, then it has somehow failed.
A few days ago. A clip from the so-called comedian Pranit More’s show went viral. In the clip, an audience member named ‘Himanshu Jangra’ could be heard recounting taking a girl on a date, feeding her biryani for around Rs 370, and then feeling entitled to ‘vasool’ (recover) his investment when she wanted to head home. Many laughed it off as ‘peak Gurgaon content.’ They laughed as if it were a joke, but if you ask me, it wasn’t. It should be described for what it was: a sick mentality.
Let’s not soften this or dress it in academic language. When Jangra said, ‘vasool karunga’ after paying for a girl’s dinner, he wasn’t making a joke. He was making a declaration. He was saying: ‘I have made a financial transaction, and now I am owed a biological return on investment.’ I’m sorry, but that is not dating; it’s business. The word vasool — to recover, to extract what is owed — belongs in the vocabulary of loan sharks and landlords, not in human relationships. And the fact that such a word has migrated so casually into the language of dating tells us everything that has gone wrong in our society.
The fact that people laughed as if Jangra had just delivered the greatest joke of the century—not reduced a woman’s dignity to a financial transaction, but somehow elevated it—is what makes the incident truly disturbing.
More was the performer. He had the mic. He had the power to stop Jangra from uttering those utterly disgusting words. Yet, More chose to motivate him to finish his story. He can be seen laughing and enjoying Jangra’s story. With this, More has done nothing but contribute to normalizing derogatory remarks in comedy. At this point, we must ask: is crossing the line in the name of comedy still comedy, or simply the normalization of vulgarity?
We inherited a civilization that produced profound ideas of respect, dharma, and the elevation of human dignity. Relationships in our epics and ethics were never transactional. Yet today, under the banner of ‘dark humor’ and ‘red pill’ content — content that gives unhealthy ideas about relationships, women, masculinity etc), we are ready to auction off that legacy for a few minutes of entertainment and popularity.
What was more disturbing was how the women creators themselves reacted to this whole incident. One creator said: ‘Rs 370 mein toh mera lipstick nahi aata.’ The other said: ‘Rs 370 mein toh meri skincare products bhi nahi aati.’ Another said: ‘Rs 370 mein meri ek special coffee nahi aati.’ In trying to mock the amount, they unknowingly accepted the premise.
Result? Almost all the commentary absorbed the remarks made by these women creators as a punchline — as women winning the exchange as a clapback that settled the debate. But did anything of this sort happen? In my opinion, no.
That these women creators did not present a defense of dignity, nor were their remarks about bodily autonomy. What they actually did was basically this: they turned a debate of dignity into a debate of spending competition. I would describe their act as a class flex wrapped in the language of self-worth. A flex that did not challenge the transactional logic of dating — it extended it. That the Rs 370 transaction was too small, a larger transaction would have been more acceptable.
This is what happens when sensitive, genuinely important conversations — about consent, about mutual respect, about what we owe each other as human beings — become raw material for content farms. The algorithm does not care about one’s dignity. It only cares about engagement. And nothing drives engagement like a good gender war seasoned with lifestyle flexing.
I insist, step back a bit, and what you see is not a biryani controversy. What you see is a civilization that is quietly accepting—the unaccepted—money as the ultimate measure of human worth — and then is surprised when people behave accordingly. We have built a culture, accelerated violently by social media, in which your identity is your consumption. Your skincare routine. Your gym membership. Your café preferences. Your vacation destinations. Strip those away and what remains? For many, genuinely, nothing — because the inner life was never developed, only the external display.
Indian philosophical traditions warned us about this long before social media influencers, dating apps, and consumer culture came into existence. Aparigraha—non-possessiveness—is not merely an ascetic ideal meant for monks and sages. It is a profound recognition that the more we define ourselves through what we own, purchase, and display, the more disconnected we become from our true worth. Santosha—contentment—is not passive acceptance; it is the refusal to let one’s dignity depend upon wealth, status, or consumption. Yet look at where we have arrived.
Modern psychology has repeatedly pointed toward the same conclusion. The deeper people tie their sense of worth to money, possessions, status symbols, and consumption, the more likely they are to experience anxiety, dissatisfaction, and an endless feeling that they never have enough. The pursuit of material validation is a race with no finish line. As many of us know, there is always a more expensive product, a more wealthy person or a higher standard of consumption to chase.
More importantly, a life built around material worth gradually weakens the ability to form genuine human connections. Real intimacy is not built on purchasing power. It requires trust, vulnerability, and authenticity. But vulnerability becomes difficult when a person’s identity is dependent on projecting success, wealth, and status.
The Rs 370 man Jangra is not an anomaly. He is a product. He was produced by a cultural environment that teaches young men that dignity is not a thing to consider and it is only getting physical that matters. That a date is an investment requiring returns. He was produced by locker-room philosophies passed off as wisdom, by a certain genre of ‘red pill.’
The women who responded with skincare receipts are no different. They are also products — of a different cultural pressure, one that weaponizes consumption as identity, that conflates spending power with self-worth, that is found in the language of ‘I deserve better,’ a convenient cover for ‘I consume at a higher price point.’
I say, no amount of money entitles anyone to another person’s dignity. Not Rs 370. Not Rs 3,70,000. The moment any person — male or female — begins calculating what they are ‘owed’ by a date, they have already failed at the most fundamental requirement of human connection: seeing the other person as a person. The biryani has long been digested. The man has likely moved on to his next date—along with getting fired from his current job—with maybe the same entitlement intact. And the reel-makers, too, will move on to the next outrage cycle. But the mirror remains.
The question is not whether the Rs 370 man was wrong. He was. Unambiguously. Completely. Without an inch of doubt. The question that nobody stayed long enough to ask is what it says about us — all of us — that the most natural language available for asserting human worth turned out to be a receipt.
Relationships — real ones, with humans, not products — are not economies. They never were. And every time we treat them as such, whether through ‘vasool karunga’ or ‘you can’t afford me,’ we make ourselves a little less capable of one thing that no amount of money can manufacture: the quality of connecting with another human being.
