Actors and half-brothers Arya Babbar and Prateik Smita Patil share an estranged relationship. Sons to actor-politician Raj Babbar, they are not on speaking terms. Recently, their equation came into the spotlight again as Arya made a remark on Prateik’s name in a clip from his standup set.
Arya Babbar, who dabbled into standup comedy in 2024, released the clip on Monday where he is talking about depression, and made a reference to his genitalia as “chota bhai”, and quipped, “And by chota bhai, I don’t mean Prateik Babbar”. As the audience laughed, he said, “Prateik Smita Patil,” prompting the audience to applaud. He then made another quip saying, “Kya ho raha hai Smita maa.” Arya even captioned the video, “No names were changed in the making of this joke,” seemingly a reference at Prateik changing his last name from Babbar to his mother’s name.
Check out the clip here:
As we reach out to Arya, he says his set is about his depression and talks about him, his family and the dysfunctionalities in it. “It is about a night where I contemplated attempting suicide and I survived it. The idea of doing this is ki aaj koi meri tarah aisi bewakoofi karne ki soch raha ho to use main bacha sakun,” he says, adding, “I speak about chota bhai in terms of depression, and in the moment, I just said that chota bhai does not mean Prateik Babbar. As soon as I said it, I realised that he has changed his name and he is quite sensitive about this thing that he doesn’t want to be called Prateik Babbar. So, I just corrected myself. The world knows that I don’t take Smita Maa’s name without adding maa, so I said that. For me, it was not a joke. I was just stating a fact, the audience found humour in that.”
Arya acknowledge that his family has always been under public eye and that won’t change. “There are other actors too whose parents were actors and their affairs also came out. But unka topic of discussion nahin chal raha, bas hamara kyun chal raha hai pata nahi. But it’s life and there’s no point hiding it. Affairs happen, breakups happen and it’s okay. It’s not the end of life, and not ‘the’ life. I see the positives that I got a younger brother out of it,” he says.
Ask him if he wants to bury the hatchet with Prateik and he says, “Wo phone answer kar le, main baat kar lunga. Usne ye medium choose kiya hai ki main apni family se seedhe nahin, media ke through baat karunga, to hamare paas bhi koi option nahin bachta.” He adds, “What I am not okay with is that the first family of Babbar sahab cannot be the villains. Why are you being victimised and we are being called the villains. We are not saying anything to you, we are accepting and respecting you, so why are we the villains?”