A comedian who teaches children on how to become leaders by laughing and has written for TV shows like The Simpsons, now presents a stand-up act in the city
A comedian who teaches children on how to become leaders by laughing and has written for TV shows like The Simpsons, now presents a stand-up act in the city
For the last three months, a London-born man of Indian origin has been working with children from various socio-economic backgrounds in Mumbai to become leaders. But his is not a boring presentation filled with management jargons. He, in fact, uses laughter or what he calls the LOL (laugh out loud) method.
Anand Chulani at a workshop.
Anand Chulani, 34, has been working on the concept of the LOL method since 2007. He has, till now, worked with over 40,000 children across the world, and about 9,000 kids in India alone. Globally, he has conducted workshops with slum dwellers, members of gangs, and he claims to have helped many join schools and do better in life. But it all started when he met a group of Palestinian children for a documentary on child suicide bombers.
"I was asked to make them laugh, and some of them had recently lost family members. I just put on a song by Black Eyed Peas and did a stupid gig. It was terrible, but they all laughed. That's when I realised that this is what I have to do," says Chulani.
Prior to conducting workshops using LOL, Chulani had been working in the comedy industry as a stand-up comedian and a scriptwriter for over 10 years. He has written for award-winning TV shows like The Simpsons and Goodness Gracious Me, toured with popular stand up comedian Russell Peters on his shows and also been head writer for Anthony Robbins, a world-famous success coach, who has worked with famous names like Anthony Hopkins and Nelson Mandela.
Apart from his workshops, Chulani also works as an educational director and actor with Improv Comedy Mumbai (ICM). He is performing on May 10 with the ICM at the Comedy Store. He says of the show, "It is a completely improvisational show. Audience members suggest a theme and we act it out."
In their last such act, an audience member in Mumbai suggested 'rap and bhajan'. "We then had to come up with a rap version of a bhajan and also played various musical instruments," he adds.
On his association with The Simpsons, Chulani says, "This was the episode where the work done by Homer's factory was being outsourced to India." The episode writers wanted someone who could come up with a Bollywood-like sequence that would be funny. That's when they got Chulani. Chulani not only came up with the sequence, but to convince the writers, he even acted out a song, playing both the man and the woman's part.
At: 8.30 pm, May 10, The Comedy Store, 3rd Floor, Palladium Mall, High Street Phoenix, Senapati Bapat Marg, Lower Parel
Call: 43485000
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