From kidnapping to catfishing: Celebs recall their best encounter with pranks

April is here and that can mean only one thing for pranksters and jesters — Fools’ Day. It is the one day of the year when practical jokes and leg-pulls are received with warmth by loved ones. On this chucklesome occasion, we caught up with celebs, who relive some of their best memories from their prank wall of fame.

My brother and I were really naughty growing up.He was naughtier, but we did everything together and that’s probably why our bond is so strong. I remember dialling number seven, seven times, thinking it’s the devil’s number and the person who picked up said he would call the police. We got very scared and hid under the bed. Whenever the doorbell rang, we used to think the police had come to get us. Once, my brother stuck a chewing gum in my hair while I was sleeping and I had to go get a pixie cut! On one Deepavali, we put a bomb inside a post box of our neighbour whom we didn’t like, and ran. My parents eventually found out and we got yelled at!
I am a big prankster and keep fooling around with my wife Prachi on an everyday basis. Sometimes when she heads to the bathroom, I lie down right outside the room and act dead. She gets freaked out when she opens the door. STR and I, too, keep pranking one of our common friends. We would tell him that we’ve been waiting outside his house, but we wouldn’t have started from our homes. He would simply stand there and look for us. But one of the most memorable pranks that I have played was way back in 2006-07. My friend had gotten a superbike and I asked him if I could use it for a short trip that I had planned to go on. I gave him my car in return. But I sneakily asked my driver to take my car out at night without my friend’s knowledge and park it at my place. The next morning, my friend frantically called me, saying that my car was missing. I played along and asked him to look for it. I asked him to buy me a new car since he lost mine. He panicked and lodged a police complaint. He got so worried, and eventually, once I got back, I told him the true story. He never gave me his bike again!

Four years ago, on a friend’s birthday, we decided to kidnap him! We asked the guy — Sam — to pick up one of our friends and come to a movie theatre for a late-night show. We hired six guys, who went and knocked on his car window at a signal, asking the way to T Nagar. He rolled down the window to show them the route and they forcibly got inside the car and started to drive away. Our friend got freaked out and kept insisting they have got the wrong guy. The guys then asked, ‘Nee dhaane Sam? Un periamma dhane Assistant Commissioner?’, and when our friend said yes, they said, ‘Avanga enga friend-a adiche konnuttanga,’ and insisted he marries that person’s sister. When he protested, they stripped him down to his boxer. One of the guys we hired didn’t know it was a prank, and so, he started pulling my friend’s hair! We were listening to the entire conversation in our car and were following our friend’s vehicle. To make it look authentic, we called him in between, asking why it was taking him long to reach the theatre. My friend had reached a zone where he thought his life was over and finally agreed to marry the girl. They drove him around the city for over two hours and finally, got him dressed again, blindfolded him and brought him to our car, where we had his birthday cake. I thought he would break up with us, but he says that was his best birthday ever!

Once, on an April Fools’ Day, I told quite a few friends in my neighbourhood that my 80-year-old thatha still climbed atop the house, holding onto the pipes. I told them in Tamil, “Pipe pudichukkittey naalu maadi yaeraraaru!” They didn’t believe it and they actually dropped in at my place to find that out. They were eagerly waiting outside next to the pipes. I asked them why they were waiting outside and called them inside to show my thatha trudging up the stairs holding his smoking pipe. It was good fun. Thankfully, no one bashed me.

I’ve played small pranks right from my school days — screaming when a friend passes by, saying there’s a lizard on his shoulder or somebody has splashed ink on his back. It used to be a lot of fun in those days. But if there’s one unforgettable prank that I pulled off, it was on anchor Jacqueline. This was the time when I had won the Kalakka Povathu Yaaru show and was doing a lot of interviews with Azhar. We rang up Jacqueline, and Azhar spoke to her like he was actor Jai. He said he was doing a film with Anjali in the lead, and wanted to cast her as the second lead in it. She somehow didn’t believe it was Jai, so, Azhar was like, ‘Ennama, naan enna mimicry-a pannaren’, and went on, saying that the film is titled Bhoomi Enna Suthudhe, and he was passing the phone to the director. I posed like the director and told her, ‘Naan dhan VIP padam director, we want to cast you in this film’. She had started relenting and asked where she should come over for a meeting. I asked her to write down the address and said, ‘No 49, Loosu Theru’, and she did a double take. I quickly said, ‘Illa, Ghose theru, Valasaravakkam, Chennai 744’, and started laughing. She immediately figured out it was us! I must give it to her for handling the situation so sweetly.
When I lived at my parents’ home, my dad and I used to have this childish contest to see who would fool whom first. It would not be anything serious, but ridiculous things like, ‘Hey, there’s someone at the door for you’, ‘Your coffee is ready’, or ‘Your school uniform has a tear’. But it was so funny because we used to do it every year and my dad always got the better of me, plotting all the time. He’d always keep it simple and that was the genius move. I’d fall for it and he’d laugh with glee! It really strengthened our bond. I think I’m going to fool him this year!
While in college. a bunch of friends and I once accessed another friend’s mobile phone and changed one of our contact names on his phone to the name of a girl he had a crush on. It was like catfishing. We then began messaging very sweet nothings to him. We wanted it to be a long-haul prank as we did not want to break the bubble immediately. So, we gradually texted him, just like how a crush would do in films. At one point, he replied saying, ‘I love you’, to us. We then told him to meet us in person and revealed that it was actually us texting him all this while. Looking back at it now, it does look and sound cruel. But he was chill with it and took it as fun. You know how college life is. It is filled with such idiotic pranks!