No joke, this!

A young boy born in a farmer���s family in a remote village of Rajasthan dreams of becoming a star from childhood.
He grows up imitating the paanwala, doodhwala and pansari of his village and earns the title of Khayali, the dreamer. One day he runs away from home to rewrite his destiny.
And he returns years later, not just as a successful entertainer on silver screen, but also brings along enough resources to fund education in his village.Sounds like Bollywood stuff? Well, this is the true story of stand-up comedian and actor Khayali Saharan who has succeeded in rewriting his destiny by making it big in tinsel town on the basis of his grit and hard work.
���I ran away from my village Hanumangarh at a very young age, worked as a chowkidaar, mill worker, swimming coach, theatre artist, anchor and event manager in Chandigarh before I won the Laughter Challenge contest in 2006, and my life changed forever,��� remembers Khayali who for a long time wasn���t aware of the gift of the gab that he possessed. ���I didn���t even know that I had some exceptional talent in me. I loved sharing jokes and copying people and had no clue that what I was doing is called mimicry or stand-up comedy, forget about thinking of making a profession out of it,��� says Khayali.
He recalls how he took part in Vishwa Hasya Sammelan organised in Jawahar Kala Kendra in Jaipur just for fun. ���I was the only comedian representing India and after I won a prize and came back home, no one was willing to accept that I have won an international contest. That was the moment when I decided to utilise my talent to make it big in Bollywood,��� adds the man who has since taken part in at least half a dozen comedy shows on TV, and is now a household name.
With a few films, including Journey...Bombay To Goa, Meri Padosan, One Fine Monday and more recently Singh is King in his kitty, Khayali is also shooting for Sunil Babbar���s The Party in which he plays the role of Khayali a happy-go- lucky guy who thinks he can make his way out through anything with his pranks. ���The character is multihued and I thoroughly enjoyed doing it. But this is just the beginning for me and I still have a very long way to go,��� says Khayli who believes one should never let success get into one���s head no matter how much fame one attains.
���I am still the simple villager who left Rajasthan a decade ago. Mumbai hasn���t changed me a bit. I don���t go to pubs, don���t attend parties, I don���t smoke or drink and I have a mission to follow,��� shares Khayali who has done his bit for his home state by donating 20 bighas of land and rupees 1.25 crore for the construction of an education city with state-of-the-art facilities in Rajasthan that would enable poor students from remote areas to avail world-class education.
���I never got to study and achieved success the hard way. But others may not be so lucky. I hope the education city will realise the dreams of many who are deprived of education and are forced to kill their aspirations,��� says Khayali. The comedian, known for making people laugh with his jokes and actions, is sure to light up many faces with smiles and gratitude with this gesture.