Ash Chandler seems quite convinced that he’s not really the person making you laugh. “There are people who don’t even try. They’re just genuinely funny. I’m not one of those people,” he admits without reservation. In fact, his brand of humour comes with a sharp edge. Ash subscribes to the philosophy that a good comedian holds up a mirror to society – making mirth out of the reflection he sees there. “Actually, I’m not a funny guy at all,” he says. “I’m just a good observer and I think you’re funny...I’m just the one who chronicles that. That’s my job.”
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It has been a busy year for the American born Indian artist – he has been in demand as a comedian, but he also played his first leading role in the film ‘Love, Wrinkle Free’ following on a successful stint as a villain in the film ‘Guzaarish’ with Aishwarya Rai and Hrithik Roshan. You can see him do his finest Godfather impression in the former, which has been described as a fresh and funny film about a dysfunctional Goan family. His Italian bistro, Da Vinci’s in Mumbai is thriving and even though he has given up on his business with the Mumbai Motorcycle Company, he still maintains and drives the four beauties that make up his personal stable. 2012 will have a special personal significance as well. Ash will begin the year by celebrating his nuptials to fashion designer Junelia Aguiar. It will be his second marriage - “Once more, with feeling,” he quips.
Despite the odd lapse into humour Ash is a surprisingly earnest interviewee. For starters, he describes the pressure of being funny as a “burden.” He tells me he spent his first few hours in Colombo in intense rehearsals, but while he covered the song and dance routines, he never runs through his jokes. “Stand up is about reacting to a moment, it’s about being in that moment,” he says, emphasising there’s no rehearsing a routine. Instead, Ash always keeps a delicate finger on the pulse of his audience. “It’s their mood that will decide everything about the show – from how raunchy the jokes get to how interactive the session is.”
For Ash, an unresponsive audience isn’t quite the death knell it is for other comedians. Incorporating music and dance, his performances more closely resemble a one man variety show. (Unfortunately, he left his Elvis suit behind this time.) His goal is to ease his audience into the show – even though he believes more interaction equals more fun, he’s careful not to put them on the spot too early in the evening. He uses a metaphor to explain his approach: “When you’re dancing with a woman, you don’t bust out your MC hammer moves right away...You start slow...you figure out what the rhythm of this moment is. Then you work your moves in...You don’t want to scare the woman off.”
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To put himself into the zone, Ash likes to listen to Western classical music before his performance. (He told The Hindu in a previous interview that Mozart “achieves an incredible balance between feeling and intellect, between emotions and logic.”) Today he describes it as finding an almost meditative space and quotes studies which pegged Pachelbel’s Canon in D Minor as evoking the same level of right and left brained responses. “There’s something very therapeutic about listening to that music,” he says. “It sort of evaporates the moment, it evaporates your own ego.”
It’s the same feeling he gets on a bike. He loves riding and recently wrote about conquering ‘The Dragon’ – winding across the Smokey Mountains in North Carolina, the road boasts a dizzying 318 turns in 11.8 miles. Ash will deny he’s an adrenaline junkie – even when skydiving, it’s the part after his parachute opens and he’s drifting that he most loves. On a bike it’s the complete concentration, the sense of leaving every other thought behind that gets him. It’s why the first thing he asked for in Colombo was a bike to ride.
It’s handy that this is also his preferred method for discovering new countries. He hates the idea of guided tours and prefers instead to get as up, close and personal with the locals as he can. He says he has every intention of picking up on uniquely Sri Lankan things and weaving them into his routine.
Ash’s performance in Sri Lanka was made possible by the company Remcel Entertainment.
A composite of Remy and Celine – the names of founder Sunil Shamdasani’s children - the company has brought down many other artists recently including tribute bands of the Beatles, Bee Gees and Abba. Next year we can look forward to a Queen tribute band among other acts, says Sunil, adding that he believes that there’s a growing market in Sri Lanka for quality performances. “We believe Colombo is ready for more,” he says.
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