IITians trade jobs for laughs, strike it rich

'Manmohan Singh to write an autobiography titled 3 Mistakes of my Life: 2G, CWG and Sonia G' . This quip is product of the minds of engineers from IIT, Bombay, who dumped juicy placement offers to start a stand-up comedy company in October 2009. Kiran Amit Wadhwa reports.

'Manmohan Singh to write an autobiography titled 3 Mistakes of my Life: 2G, CWG and Sonia G'

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These quips are products of the minds of engineers from IIT, Bombay, who dumped juicy placement offers to start a stand-up comedy company in October 2009. Two years and plenty of laughs later, these engineers are literally laughing their way to the bank with successful shows across India.

The brainchild of Nitin Gupta (26), a former IITian, Entertainment Engineers is now a 10-member-strong firm. Many of them are engineers from IIT-B. The company has done 48 shows in campuses and corporate houses across the country and has 16 more lined up this year.

"The aim is to make stand-up comedy a respectable profession in India and, of course, profitable," said Gupta, who started the firm with two of his IIT friends.

Their story has now become an inspiration for several students at IIT-B who want to join their company. "I was always interested in drama and comedy, but only after I joined the company did I realise that this is what I want to be," said Prashant Chandra, 19, a first-year mechanical engineering student, who looks after the company's business development. He hopes to become a performer like his seniors some day.