Cyrus Sahukar

Cyrus Sahukar (born 6 August 1980) is an Indian VJ and Bollywood actor. He is known for his comic wit in shows like Semi Girebaal and other such satirical comedy shows, hosting, and spoofs.

Early life
Cyrus Sahukar was born in the military headquarters of Mhow, Indore on 6 August 1980. His father, Colonel Behram Sahukar, is Parsi, and his mother, Nimeran Sahukar, a writer, is Punjabi. He has an elder sister, Preeti Philip, who is an artist. Sahukar did his schooling from St Columba's School, Delhi and he graduated from the Delhi College of Arts and Commerce of Delhi University.

Sahukar started doing theatre in school and acted in school plays from the age of 6. He also used to sing in his school band, and by age 14, he was a part of IPS Kiran Bedi's Literacy Mission Program, in which the students performed plays and educational skits for the Punjabi inmates of Tihar Jail. During the same period, he acted in a play which was a part of Barry John's Red Noses Club. The play was directed by John and was called Haroun and the Sea of Stories, based on a novel by author Salman Rushdie.

At 15, he performed a musical show called Thank you for the music, directed by Stephen Marazzi, which was his first professional endeavor as a singer. After that, he joined Roshan Abbas and started doing radio voice-overs and jingles. His first jingle was for Harpic.

By the age of 16, he was hosting a Punjabi radio show called Radio Rampage in Delhi. Around the same time, he worked on the production of and acted in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Starlight Express and Graffiti Postcards from School, both plays directed by Roshan Abbas.

At the age of 18, he auditioned in a nationwide search for MTV India called MTV VJ Hunt. He won this VJ Hunt along with Mini Mathur and Asif Seth.

Journey from MTV
He joined MTV in the end of 1999 and moved from Delhi to Mumbai and became one of the youngest people working in MTV. He said about the demanding new work, "It was a scary time. Channel V had just been launched as well and there were 15 new VJs every week. And to top that off, my name was Cyrus," referring both to comparisons with elder-comic Cyrus Broacha and the seemingly-limited number of Parsi names.

The following year, in 2000, he fronted a show called MTV Fully Faltoo. It went on to become one of the first shows to spoof on everything – from movies, to ads, and TV shows, prominent among them being Sholay, Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai and the Indiana Jones series.

Around the same time, he started performing a spoof on Navjot Singh Sidhu as Piddhu The Great and also hosted Semi Girebaal, which was a spoof on the talk show Rendezvous with Simi Garewal. Semi Girebaal recorded a higher rating than the original show.

When MTV forayed into the mockumentary arena, he started anchoring the show Kickass Mornings, in which he played 25 different characters. He then also hosted two seasons of the game show Hole in the Wall, followed by All stars, both for Pogo Channel.

His most high-profile film role to-date came with Aisha (2010), the ensemble romantic comedy-drama directed by Rajshree Ojha, in which he starred alongside Sonam Kapoor, Abhay Deol, Ira Dubey, Amrita Puri, Anand Tiwari, Arunoday Singh and Lisa Haydon; he portrayed Randhir Gambhir, a sweetmeat business tycoon and friend of Kapoor's eponymous lead.

Selected works

 * Worked on MTV Bakra Gag
 * Hosted a travel show called Chill Out in 1999
 * Piddhu the Great – a spoof on Navjot Singh Sidhu in 2000
 * MTV Fully Faltoo Film festival – Bechare Zameen Par
 * Kick Ass Mornings, where he played over 25 characters
 * The first time MTV shot a mockumentary where he played Bobby Chadda and Paromita the Neurotic
 * Nat Geo – hosted the International Spelling Bee
 * Fox Life – Hosted Season 2 of the travel show The Great Escape with actor Kunal Kapoor in 2017
 * MTV Housefull
 * Hosted India's Got Talent on Colors in 2012
 * Hosted Sab Khelo Sab Jeeto on SAB in 2013

Events

 * Style Awards for MTV India
 * Corporate shows – Infosys, ICICI Bank, HSBC, Hindustan lever, Hewlett Packard, HDFC, Birla Sun Life Insurance
 * Launched all the Planet M stores in Mumbai, Delhi, Chandigarh and many other cities

Television

 * Hosted the 1st season of MTV Roadies, judged season 7
 * Hosted the VJ Hunt in 2002 and 2009
 * Hosted Sab Khelo Sab Jeeto, 2014, SAB TV
 * Hosted Challenge Accepted 2017, Comedy Central (a reality comedy show)
 * Hosted Brain Wagon, Colors UAE, 2018
 * Hosted Elevator Pitch 2018, Mtv India
 * Hosted Hole in the Wall, Pogo