A hearty laugh is good for your well-being

Laughter is the best medicine! 

I truly believe this, which is why I look forward to those crazy moments with my kids, family, friends, and even my office mates when you just can’t stop laughing.

Yes, sports helps keep you fit and healthy, but a hearty laugh will do wonders for your well-being.

A firm believer in laughter being an important part of one’s life is Dilip Budhrani, a businessman into micro finance and property development, who put up Prime i Events which specializes in international stand-up comedy shows featuring talents from various countries. 

So, from being a marathoner with over 20 races under his belt including the LA marathon, and being the organizer and commissioner of the Filipino Indian Basketball League,  Dilip, together with his wife Saira, embarked on a new journey, to manage this company where she handles operations and he takes care of the marketing, logistics, and other matters pertaining to the show.

PHILIPPINE STAR: Talk about your company and what you’ve done so far.

DILIP BUDHRANI: We have done many previous shows which featured great Indian talents, and we started with an audience of 80 people who packed the venue, and we sold out the tickets in less than a week. From there, we grew the interest and capacities grew and we were doing two night shows.

We did Magners International Comedy Festivals and several shows featuring super funny talents such as Sharul Channa, Rishi Budhrani (no relationship to me), Kavin Jay, Andrew Netto, and a host of others.

Our last show was Angry Indians last June, and this is when we got invited by Kavin, one of the Angry Indians and its organizer, Harith Iskander, who won the World’s Funniest Person in the World competition last year, to visit the KL International Comedy Festival, and we were also invited to the Comedy Central Asia event last July.

 This is when we saw and realized how far behind the Philippines is in the international comedy circuit and my wife and I decided that we should put the Philippine in the circuit map. With the popularity of Netflix and with our organizational skills in tow, we are embarking on this journey and we want to organize the First Philippines International Comedy Festival in due time. At the same time, we want to grow the market of comedy lovers here.

What plans do you have on the table? 

We are trying to take comedy to the next level and have great intelligent humor with stories and tales from a very well-selected pool of talents we met along our festival travels.

We are very excited for our upcoming show on Nov. 27 at Solaire! 

We have headliner Paul Ogata from the US, who was the highlight of the Kuala Lumpur International Comedy Festival 2017. He is also a headliner at the Hong Kong International Comedy Festival as part of his Super Asia Tour, which includes Singapore and Indonesia.

The show also features, among others, Rizal Van Geyzel, a Malay comic, who touches on Euro Asian/ Malay antics. He is the co-founder of Crackhouse Comedy Club Malaysia.

The market has been quite receptive with our shows and we see a good future. We hope to bring in around eight shows next year and we have so many comedians who want to come and perform in Manila.

You sincerely believe laughter is healthy? 

 Laughter and humor is an amazing healer and it does bring a positive attitude towards life. It is always good to see the funnier side to the many disasters and challenges that come into our everyday lives and we need to pick up the pieces, and although not everything is a laughing matter, humor always is a great ice breaker and brings more positive vibes, whether in relationships, business or our daily grind.

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