Sunil Pal, comedian

It’s a simple policy that kept comedian Sunil Pal going. From sellingbread at age 10 to bringing money to a home beleaguered with an alcoholic father to now rushing from one recording studio to another. From driving a rickshaw at 16 to being unabashed about the chauffeured Honda City parked below his apartment in Mumbai’s Santa Cruz. He never let where he’s coming from affect where he wants to go.

So despite a not so happy start in hometown Balarshah, a train stop in Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district where he once even worked as a construction labourer, he never let go of his funny bone.

“I would inevitably been seen at the village square mimicking Amitabh Bachchan or Mithun Chakraborty,” he says, sprawled on a sofa in his three-bedroom rented home.

He first went to Nagpur, signing up for comic relief in local orchestras and a circus. Then it was Mumbai where he worked as a helper at a tea stall and built contacts while still sleeping on the pavement opposite. One thing led to another and Pal was soon introduced to Johny Lever and his brother Johny Moses. Then one-day, in 1999, a drunkard on the local train passed him a number of star-event organiser, the Mooranis. In just a while, Pal was flying to Singapore. The event featured Shahrukh Khan.

“I was doing everything I wanted. I was part of shows that had Bollywood’s best — from Sonu Nigam to Ashutosh Gowarikar. I was popular on the circuit but I still didn’t have any face value,” he says. Then Moses suggested he sign up for Star One’s Laughter Challenge. The rest, we all know, is reality TV. “Duniya badal gayee meri,” he says.

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