New funny boy everyone loves

In school Saurabh Ghadge was an outlier but with a funny bone Hersquod be up to mischief making his classmates crack up Sometimes this would land him in trouble and hersquod be kicked out of the classroom ldquoEven when I was thrown outside I would be busy figuring ways to make my friends inside laugh I was the naughtiest boy around But it was always only about ensuring everyone was having fun even if it was at my costrdquo the video creator recallsGhadge 21 rose to fame during the lockdown with his hilarious videos on Instagram Reels that made established comics and digital creators like Atul Khatri Kusha Kapila and Dolly Singh take notice of him On April 11 Ghadge hit 400K followers which he says was a massive leap from the 20K he had managed in 2020 ldquoIt took me five years to get hererdquo he tells us in a telephonic chatKnown for his short comedy sketches of the moustachewielding dad and dupattaclad mum and girlfriend Ghadgersquos videos on saurabhghadge_vines have his charactersmdashall played by himmdashengage in everyday amusing banter In one video titled What She Says Vs What She Means he is seen asking his visiblydisturbed girlfriend ldquoAre you okayrdquo When she impassively responds with ldquoYes yes I am finerdquo he goes back to watching a video on his phone only to be rebuked ldquoYou canrsquot even figure out that I am sadhellipYou are so disappointingrdquo The girlfriend continues to rattle him with confusing statements and he gives up ldquoArrehellip Tu kya puzzle hai Samajhta hi nahin mereko kaise tereko solve karurdquo Ghadge gives the otherwise clicheacuted dialogues an edge with his remarkable acting skills and comic timing Itrsquos a video we admit to him wersquove watched on loop Ghadge who is a resident of Mulund and completed his Bachelor of Commerce from VG Vaze College in November last year says he started out as a voracious consumer of digital content before he even considered making videos himself ldquoWhen I was in school the comedy company AIB All India Bakchod was a big deal Irsquod follow all their work But I think it was Ashish Chanchlani and Bhuvan Bam whose content I was a huge fan of Unko dekh ke mazaa aata tha They began inspiring merdquo he says On a whim he started making similar videos to share with friends on WhatsApp ldquoOne day a friend challenged me to upload my video on social media I accepted the dare After that I guess it never stoppedrdquoWhat began with 200 followers and as a fun experiment took a life of its own during the lockdown Before that Ghadge had just about 10k followers which he says was a decent number but not enough to make it to the cream of the crop ldquoOur final exams were postponed and I really had nothing to do so I started fooling around on TikTokrdquo he recalls He was just about enjoying using the videosharing app when it was banned by the Indian government in June 2020 When Instagram Reels launched a few days later Ghadge immediately jumped on the bandwagon ldquoI upload videos almost every alternate dayrdquoWhile most of his videos are in Hindi Ghadge splices them with Bambaiya lingo and Marathi slang that gives them a local feel The character of the Englishspeaking girlfriend with light facial hair and wig covered by a white dupatta he says was inspired by the South Mumbai girls ldquoThe lsquoya yarsquo lsquoHi babyrsquo typesrdquo he jokes even if stereotypically ldquoOf course not all girls from SoBo are like that But I just combined all the traits that I found amusing for my character Itrsquos strange but once I wear the wig I live the parthellip even if I am not in front of the camera I start talking like that I forget I am a guyrdquoHis favourite character which he most enjoys playing is that of the dad ldquoI think everyone relates to this character because there are some traits that are typical to only Indian fathers In fact about 50 per cent of that character has been inspired by my own dadrdquo he adds Sometimes he is joined by school friend Sharavan Kshirsagar and other local digital creators Ghadge had a starstruck moment recently when Chanchlani started following him ldquoHe is one of the reasons why I am making content So imagine being appreciated by himrdquoStaying relevant he says is not easy especially because there is a glut of video creators online ldquoConstantly reinventing my material having my ears to the ground when it comes to trends and sharing videos regularly have helped me But none of it works if the audience canrsquot relate to itrdquo