2017 was the year of Ed Sheeran and his groovy song Shape of You. While the world played the song in loops, Malayalees had their own version of Shape of You and it featured Mr. Ponjikkara, the self-proclaimed ex-body builder, played by Innocent in Kalyana Raman. The video was a laugh riot and the name Atul Sajeev was noted across Kerala.
He turned out to be one of those few troll makers who brought out videos which were rib tickling. While many gave Salim Kumar’s character Pyari, Harisree Ashokan’s Ramanan and even Tom & Jerry a new twist with some interesting voice overs, it was Atul’s videos that got a huge round of applause through likes and shares.
When asked, Atul has a very simple answer: “I am a very happy person and I love to keep people happy, that is what I try to do through these videos.” Atul is a final year mechanical engineering student at Government Engineering College, Thrissur. “I have been making troll videos for some time now. My biggest hit, however, was Mr Ponjikkara’s Shape of You.” Currently, the video has 2,39,290 views on YouTube. It was widely shared across troll groups and pages this year. “The other video that went viral was ‘Poomaram Tom’ which featured cartoon character Tom singing the hit song Poomaram.” This was also shared by Kalidas Jayaram who starred in the original version.
So how does he come up with these quirky mash-ups? “I do not spend a lot of time thinking about this. These ideas just spring up while killing time in our college hostel,” he laughs. “I do not make a lot of videos in a day either, may be just one after college hours. I don’t have a laptop or PC. I use my phone to make these mash-up videos. Moreover, I believe these videos get shared more because of the fun element than the technicalities.”
Atul started his YouTube channel ‘Atul Sajeev’ a year ago and it currently has around 3,000 subscribers. He is dead against online abuse through trolls. “I do not support the idea or practice of character assassination through online portals,” says Atul. “For the same reason I do not make videos that has anything to do with religion or politics. Criticism is good, but not to the extent of character assassination. I love making happy funny videos,” he says.
