Kaun Hain Ye Memes? Kahan Se Aate Hain?

How some Bollywood memes changed the emotion behind a the dialogue.

Unlike the memes from Chup Chup Ke, Welcome and Phir Hera Pheri, some memes templates come out of the most intense scenes of a film, I wanted to talk about one such scene.

I was re-watching Jolly LLB (2013) last week. Simply because I remember loving it so much on my computer that when it released in my hometown, I took my dad to watch it, as he is a lawyer. Movies used to come to our single screen theatre often late, in their 4th or 5th week of the release. So by then, we would watch it on torrent.

Jolly LLB stuck with me enough to watch it again but in a theatre.

So this time I wanted to revisit it as it’s been a long time.

Talking about this scene in particular, SPOILER ALERT, it comes in the final monologue of the film. The film is based on Sanjeev Nanda hit-and-run case of 1999.

Boman Irani, defending the accused looks down on the people sleeping on footpath and even gives the argument that footpath isn’t for people to sleep.

At this point, Arshad Warsi says how even people sleeping on footpath deserve equal justice. And then he does a slightly sarcastic remark talking about how ‘these people’ travel from their villages to our big cities and make them ‘dirty’.

And eventually says THE line.

When I rewatched, I was a little surprised. Also chuckled a bit in the midst of an intense scene in the climax. This line which has become a meme template now, was supposed to be intense where a lawyer is demanding justice for the poor and the unprivileged.

I’m not saying meme templates shouldn’t be made out of a serious scene. But I’m wondering about the people who will watch the intense monologue scene now for the first time, will it be as impactful as it would without knowing about this meme?

Some other scenes in the same zone:

This scene plays at a moment in the film when a girl who just lost her loving husband because of her mission, wants to just go back to her own country. The fact that Raazi (2018) is based on a true story makes it even more intense.

It’s been very long (3 Idiots released 15 years ago, it’s okay, I feel old too) so let me refresh your memory, it’s a guy having an emotional breakdown because his father won’t let him follow what he likes and imposes engineering on him with emotional blackmail.
Thankfully enough people watched it when it released (highest grossing Hindi film till that time). So nobody will laugh when they rewatch it again.




I’ve been a part of the meme culture since 2011, I got my first social media job because of it. So I should be the last one to point out how memes affect someone’s movie watching experience. So this is not a diss, this is just me overthinking and making you overthink the impact of the meme culture.

Ending on a happy note, my favourite meme though which expresses our emotions every time India wins anything in any sport is this, it amplifies the happiness even more:

Do let me know if you remember more memes like this which changed the emotional context of the scene ✨