From cringe-worthy sketches to sharp, incisive commentary on The Great Indian Kapil Show, Sunil Grover has carved a niche for himself in an industry obsessed with ‘finding oneself’, by choosing to be everyone else
If, by some stroke of the algorithm or a merciful technical glitch, your feed isn’t yet saturated with Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Sunil Grover, you are the outlier living under a rock. Only Grover, in his ‘Diamond Raja’ persona — complete with sequinned batwing cape and a toupée — would have the audacity to ask a woman who drawls her Rs with Hollywood precision, “Aapko English aati hai? (Do you know English?).” Pee Cee deadpanned, “Sir jitni aapko chahiye utni aati hai! (Sir, I know as much English as you need me to).” Audacious is the word that keeps coming to mind when we look at Grover’s latest oeuvre.
Singing an English duet with PC, daring to belt out a parody version of Humma Humma in front of AR Rahman himself, or mimicking Aamir Khan so effortlessly that even Aamir’s own team does a double-take, Grover is currently unstoppable. He has even done the unthinkable, by usurping the host’s chair on Kaun Banega Crorepati and forcing Amitabh Bachchan himself to play the game. It was the ultimate homage and clever subversion, placing the biggest name of Indian cinema in the proverbial and real ‘hot seat’ aka throne of his empire.
More recently, Grover even riffed on the era’s pop culture scene with a parody around AP Dhillon’s song With You (Teriyan Adavaan) on The Great Indian Kapil Show, hosted by Kapil Sharma (Netflix). In an episode featuring Dhillon and stand up artist Anubhav Singh Bassi, Grover crooned “Meriyaan Zulfaan,” a hilarious send‑up about hair loss that took social media by storm, leaving the audience and Dhillon himself in stitches and the clip doing the rounds online as yet another example of Grover’s uncanny ability to turn a cultural beat into comic gold.
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In an artistscape obsessed with ‘authenticity,’ ‘carving one’s own niche,’ and ‘being true to oneself,’ Grover upends the narrative with a panache that’s enviable. In a recent interview, he confessed his dislike for showcasing his own self, finding his greatest ease in inhabiting others instead: “I love people. I’m not just happy with myself. I want to become somebody else most of the time; that makes me very comfortable. Right now, I am myself in front of so many cameras, and I’m not as comfortable as I would be if I were somebody else.”
Wearing a dozen second skins
Grover inhabits characters like Fulljar (a satirical take on the legendary Gulzar); Karan (where he personalifies the rigid, stiff physicality of actor Salman Khan) as if they were second skin. There is also Unees–Bees Aamir, where he perfectly mirrors the kurta-wearing, ponytail-and-hairband-sporting Aamir Khan. But he doesn’t just imitate or mimic them — he weaponizes them. Grover weaponizes these personas to deliver sharp, often scathing commentary that he likely couldn’t — or wouldn’t — voice as ‘Sunil Grover’, the artist. All this while, the audience is in splits, literally bending over with laughter.
Sunil Grover as Diamond Raja with Priyanka Chopra Jonas
He famously called out special judges of the show The Great Indian Kapil Show, Archana Puran Singh and Navjot Singh Sidhu, for the absurdity of getting paid simply to laugh out loudly and applaud the proceedings. More recently, when Sidhu critiqued a background performer’s dancing, Grover — as Diamond Raja — quipped with effortless sass: “Sidhu Sir, kabhi humein bhi dekh liya karo. (Sidhu Sir, you should look at me sometimes too).” And it isn’t just famous icons that Grover inhabits; he is a prolific architect of his own alter egos. There is Diamond Raja, the “multi-hyphenate” businessman with a finger in every pie, everything from orchestra companies to card publishing. In this swashbuckling avatar, he audaciously teaches established ‘method actors’ the ropes, specifically how to perform in front of the paparazzi and how to be humble and appreciative of praise.
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Then there is Dafli, the nasal, saree-clad obsessive who hijacks the energy of every male celebrity guest, and bespectacled Chumbak Mittal, the hard-hat-wearing engineer who casually gatecrashes high-stake conversations. These aren’t just costumes, or mere characters, they are strategically placed disruptions; designed to elicit a response, and to scrape off the polished facade of stardom. He commands the S-listers to interact with his cringe-worthy observations and comments — all reflecting the pulse of the masses at large. Grover flips the script: the celeb becomes a helpless bystander and is no longer in the spotlight, they are but a mere bewildered guest in his world.
The imitation game
Renowned Irish author Oscar Wilde would have been very proud of Grover, the artist has single-handedly validated one of Wilde’s more cynical, yet profound, observations, ‘Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.’ But where others fall into mimicry by accident, or develop it as a mere party trick, Grover inhabits these ‘other people’ with such intentional precision that he elevates them to a plane that even the originals wouldn’t have dreamt of.
In an industry plagued by insecurities — where every Friday feels like a Day of Judgement —Grover’s audacity mirrors the deeply secure artist he is. He has pulled off the ultimate irony — in a world obsessed with ‘being yourself,’ Grover became iconic by being everyone else. But in the everyone-ness, he is a trained artist, armed with a Master’s degree in Theatre from Panjab University. It was here that his talent was first spotted by the legendary satirist Jaspal Bhatti (1955-2012). From blink-and-miss performances in films like Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha (1998), Main Hoon Na (2004) and Ghajini (2008), Grover got a fleshed-out character as Dipper, a quintessential ‘Narad Muni’ of sorts, in the Vishal Bhardwaj directorial, Pataakha (2018). By then, in the parallel TV world, Grover had become a household name.
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His self-confessed ‘dislike’ for playing his own self has proven to be a master asset for filmmakers, as his surrender to the script and the director’s vision is absolute. His repertoire includes Jawan (2023), Bharat (2019) and Tandav (2021). Grover seems to have no concerns to shed the artifice or armour of his sketched characters and wear the director’s vision as second skin. He has proven time and again that his talent of absorbing characters isn’t a lone party trick but a carefully studied way of life, his signature.
Time and again, the question might arise, ‘Who is the real Sunil Grover?’ Given his unique talent for inhabiting a multitude of characters, we may never truly meet him. But he has made the ‘everyone else’ so delightful and charming that the audience is perhaps content to never make his acquaintance. After all, when you are being offered an entire multiverse of Grovers, why would you ever settle for just one?
