The quiet friendship of Tanmay Bhat and Kunal Shah

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Editor's note: It is a late night in 2016 and the party is going strong. Comedian Tanmay Bhat is among friends and peers. His venture, the comedy collective All India Bakchod, is probably at the height of its popularity. Every celebrity in India recognizes the faces of AIB, as do advertisers and marketing agencies. But something is amiss and that’s the conversation Bhat is having with a friend at the party.  “I want to play a bigger game, cash out,” he says, or that’s how the friend remembers it now. It has been six years since the conversation. “You see how Arunabh has raised big money, I want to play that venture capital game. There is impact, money there, and there is the X factor too.” Arunabh Kumar is the founder of The Viral Fever, a web series production firm that had raised $10 million from hedge fund Tiger Global earlier that year. The conversation between friends lasts longer, but only a gist of it is what has remained with Bhat’s friend after all these years. That and the fact that Bhat …