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It's Kaanmasti time!

Suresh Menon and Jose Covaco reveal how their office banter became a rage on the Internet.

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It all started rather innocuously. Two imaginative and talented entertainers who host a radio show, fooled around in the studio for hours after recording their show, when they realised that their off-air banter got them more laughs than their on-air... umm.. sanitised version.

That gave birth to Kaanmasti, a non-scripted and comedy podcast, that has nearly half-a-million hits and downloads to its credit.

The partners-in-rhyme are Jose and Suresh Menon, the actor and comedian. “With Suresh, the amount of time that gets wasted in faffing around the office doing nothing is not funny,” says Jose. “What could get done in 20 minutes, takes seven hours with distractions and discussions.” Before they knew it, folks from other Red FM departments started hanging around them to get their fix of fun and laughter. “Everyone seemed to enjoy the banter off-air more than the on-air show, and we thought why not put this up online?” says Jose.

Two years and two seasons on, the duo has uploaded 20 episodes of Kaanmasti — podcasts that test the limits of humour in daily life. Swear words, dirty talk, nasty digs and random rubbish — if it’s funny, it’s there. “The rule is to be natural, no talking for the microphone. We avoid subjects like politics, children and religion, which can offend people. In any case, we are offending people all the time,” says @hoezaay, crediting many of his 98,000 Twitter followers to the podcast.

If Jose is the brain behind the podcast, Menon is its heart, soul and superstar.
His takes on Saif Ali Khan and Arnab Goswami are side-splitting. “It’s a magical chemistry. The best part is that we are both on the same page 99 percent of the time,” says Menon, who is content to just show up and do his bit, leaving all the technical bits to Jose. “His knowledge of the Internet is next only to the Internet itself,” says Menon.

Menon, who has more than 50 movies to his credit, is arguably the only entertainer in India who has done serious work exclusively for the web. The duo is now also working on short-form funny content, that is accessible across platforms and has already accumulated over half a million views.

Podcasting only humour is not always easy. “Sometimes an hour’s recording gives us 40 minutes of good content and there are times when we've junked the entire evening’s recording, especially when our wives call up and tell us to come home early,” says Jose. But they ensure that each episode has a minimum standard of quality of content, most of it hilarious.

Sipping on a cold coffee, Bandra boy Jose calls online the future. “Anyone can shoot a video with a phone and put it on YouTube; there is no entry barrier for talent," he says, adding that the feedback they get is instant.

Jose-Menon originally planned to work on just one-two episodes of Kaanmasti but the overwhelming positive feedback drove them to go on. “Though there is no money in this at the moment, we started it because we enjoy it.  As long as we enjoy it, we will continue,” says Jose. For now, it’s time to give finishing touches to the first episode of Season 3 and set off a whole new round of laugh riots.we will continue doing it,” says Jose.

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