Eat,Pray,Laugh

“But never in comedy. It was singing,” says the comedian,who,before hitting the shores of Mumbai,was teaching drama at a girls college in Jalandhar. “I’ve done a lot of serious theatre and that training is now coming in handy during our stand-up acts,” he says.

Life was uneventful till friends,catching his sense of humour,urged him to audition for the Great Indian Laughter Challenge Season 3. “Punjabis are a blessed race when it comes to humour. They can crack a great joke and take jokes too. There is wit and humour in our DNA. We eat,pray,love and laugh,” says Sharma,crediting the colourful Punjabi culture and language for bringing out the comedian in him.

While music and theatre are his first love,Sharma realised there wasn’t much money in it and jumped aboard the laughter bandwagon. He not only won the Great Indian Laughter Challenge Season 3,but also went on to win four seasons of Comedy Circus and participated in several comedy shows,events and cameos in films like Khakee and The Legend of Bhagat Singh.

As Sharma takes a breather at Hotel Hometel in Industrial Area,Chandigarh,he admits that it’s tough to churn out act after act,week after week.

“There are times when I am stressed or low on energy,but then,we take it as our responsibility and move on,” says the comedian.

His famous ‘Kapilisms’,as his greatest fan Archana Puran Singh calls them,have given stiff competition to the super Jodi of Krushna-Sudesh. But Sharma has hardly had a regular partner on stage. “The girls leave me saying I eat the stage and they hardly get noticed,” he says. After Juhi Parmar,Parvati Singhal,Shikha Singh and Ankita Lokhande,Sharma has finally found a perfect fit in Shweta Tiwari. “She is extremely hardworking and secure,” he says.

His style of stand-up has raised the bar of comedy on television,and a lot can be credited to Sharma’s keen sense of observation and character development. For instance,the hilarious Inspector Shamsher Singh of Punjab Police.

“We live in a country of billion-plus population; there is so much to see and tell,” says the comedian,who pens his own lines because he finds it difficult convey anyone else’s thoughts.

Now,inspired by comedy’s Punjabi badshahs such as Meher Mittal,Jaspal Bhatti and Gurpreet Ghuggi,Sharma is working towards writing a comedy film. But at the moment,Zee’s Star Ya Rockstar has taken precedence. The reality show has finally given a golden chance to the singer in him,and Sharma has made it to the finals.

“It’s a dream-come-true feeling,” he says. Sharma has his fingers crossed.