Girish Kumar

Girish Kumar Taurani (born 30 January 1989, age 27) is an Indian film actor working in the Hindi film industry. Girish made his Bollywood debut with the romance comedy film Ramaiya Vastavaiya, opposite Shruti Haasan, which released on 19 July 2013.

Career

An ethnic Sindhi, Girish was signed in the Bollywood romance film Ramaiya Vastavaiya, directed by Prabhu Deva and produced by his father Kumar S. Taurani, who is the managing director of Tips Industries Limited. In this film he played the role of Ram, a foreigner who was very rich, his role showed how agile and open his character truly is. Prabhu Deva trained Girish for three and a half years before the filming. To launch Girish, Prabhu Deva was signed close to three years back. Prabhu Deva decided to have an audition for him. As a result, Girish had to perform on a few scenes and also a dance number. Prabhu loved his performance, and thought that Girish had an X factor; he only needed to just polish some rough edges and become more spontaneous. He talked with his parents about giving him some dancing training and later, he selected some 25 songs and gave them to Girish so that he could practice upon them. He also appointed a few choreographers who worked on a daily basis with Girish in order to prepare him well for all formats of dances that were required for films.

Kumar

Kumar ( pronunciation ; Sanskrit: कुमार) is a Hindu title, a given name, middle name, or a family name found in India, though not specific to any caste or community. It is a generic title which variously means son, boy, prince, unmarried or chaste. It is the 9th most common family name in the world, 3rd most common in India and 2nd most common in Fiji. It is more common in Northern India and the most common family name in Haryana, Delhi, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry.

History

The origin of Kumar can be traced back to early development of Hinduism and its origin in India. The first usage of Kumar was for the Four Kumāras, the four sons of Brahma from the Puranic texts of Hinduism named Sanaka, Sanatana, Sanandana, and Sanat.

In Skanda Purana, the largest Mahapurana, a genre of eighteen Hindu religious texts, the text is devoted mainly to the leelas of Kartikeya, son of Shiva and Parvati. "Kumar" is used to refer Kartikeya.

Notable people

Kumaré

Kumaré is an American 2011 documentary film directed by Vikram Gandhi.

To record the documentary, American filmmaker Vikram Gandhi transformed himself into Sri Kumaré, an enlightened guru from a fictional village in India, by adopting a fake Indian accent and growing out his hair and beard. In the film, Kumaré travels to Arizona to spread his made-up philosophy and gain sincere followers.

Kumaré premiered at the 2011 South by Southwest Film Festival (SXSW), where it received the festival's Feature Film Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature. Gandhi came up with the idea of a fictional guru while recording another documentary film about yogis and their followers.

Reception

Kumaré received fair reviews upon release. Many movie reviewers criticized Gandhi's deception as immoral, but partially forgave Gandhi for realizing that the experiment had grown out of his control. Many compared the character of Kumaré and the deception by Gandhi to Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat character and film. Those who liked the movie, like Stephen Holden of the New York Times and Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, praised the film's message of "finding the guru within."

Kumar (Singaporean entertainer)

Kumarason Chinnadurai (born 10 August 1968, in Singapore), popularly known as Kumar, is a Singaporean Indian comedian and television host, actor, and drag queen. He made his name at the now defunct Boom Boom Room and was, for a time, synonymous with the cabaret nightclub as its resident performer. Having spent nearly two decades as an entertainer, he has amassed a string of television, stage, and film credits. Currently, he is a regular performer at 3-Monkeys Café in Holland Village and Hard Rock Café. He released his biographical book, Kumar: From Rags To Drag, in September 2011, in which he publicly came out as gay, making him one of the few openly-gay public figures in Singapore. He also discussed his then-twenty years in show business.

Early life

Kumar was born on 10 August 1968 to a South Indian father from Madras and a Singaporean mother. His father, Chinna Dorai, arrived in Singapore in the mid-1960s and worked as a caretaker for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA). When Kumar was four, his parents divorced; he was raised by his mother’s younger sister, Rani Vyarakannoo, a policewoman, who eventually became his step-mother.