Hello Vanakkam and welcome! I am a standup comedian, actor, musician, yoga teacher and an ex(hausted) software engineer. I did software engineering for fifteen years, while romancing with music and performings arts on the side. I took to standup comedy full time in 2014. My first solo standup special "Alex in Wonderland" is currently streaming on Amazon Prime (www.primevideo.com). Please do catch the full show and let me know your thoughts. All my other videos are on youtube.com/alexanderthecomic.

Love,
Alex

  • 2019 - Till Date

    Founder and director at Anba Arts

  • 2014 - Till Date

    Standup comedian - @ilikeslander

  • 2006 - 2014

    Software Development Manager at Amazon India Software, Chennai, India.

  • 2004 - 2006

    Software Engineer at Sylantro Indian Software, Bengaluru, India.

  • 1999 - 2004

    Software Engineer at Sylantro Systems, Campbell, California, USA.

  • 1999 - Till Date

    Student of Carnatic Vocal Music under Smt Suguna Purushothaman, Ragavan Manian, Vijayalakshmi Krithivasan.

  • 1999 - 2002

    Student of Hindustani Tabla under Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri, Ravi Gutala, and Rahul Deshmukh.

  • 1998 - 1999

    Masters in Computer Science at Washington University in St.Louis, Missouri, USA.

  • 1997 - 1998

    Student of Masters in Computer Science at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

  • 1993 - 1997

    Student of Bachelors in Computer Science at College of Engineering in Guindy, Anna University, Chennai, India

  • 1991 - 1993

    High school, Tamilnadu State Board, St Arulanandar Hr Sec School, Oriyur, Ramnad District, Tamil Nadu, India.

  • 1980 - 1990

    Primary & Middle school, Tamilnadu StateBoard, Sirumalar High School, Andavoorani, Ramnad District, Tamil Nadu, India

Alex in Wonderland is my first solo standup special. This is a Tanglish (Tamil + English) musical comedy show. I had the fortune of performing Wonderland for about 125 times to 100,000 live audiences across the globe from mid-2017 to mid-2019. This show is now streaming on Amazon Prime.

Wonderland will take you down the memory lane, blending Tamil cinema music, philosophy and humor. If you do not understand Tamil, the subtitles will help you journey through wonderland. Well, that's the idea! This show has won the hearts of Tamil diaspora across the globe, across age groups. Nothing is more soul-satisfying than seeing kids, parents, and grandparents sitting together, watching a show together and having a healthy laugh. Please do catch the show on www.PrimeVideo.com and share your thoughts.

This is my first Tamil feature film, released in 2010. My good friend and college buddy Raaghav (https://www.facebook.com/Ragz2Richez) produced, composed music and played a lead role in this film. I was initially supposed to play a simple cameo role. But then, when I met Mr.Charles, the writer and director of the film, things changed. I played a video of my stage show. He saw it and then offered me this pivotal role in the film. Look out for the thief in the film. Yes, that’s me back in those days. This film is not online anywhere as far as I know. This movie plays often in K TV. Do catch it when you get a chance. I love the songs in this film, especially the title track 'Oorula Onakkoru Maedai'.
This Tamil play was written and directed by Vinodhini Vaidynathan for The Hindu Theatre Festival, 2016. The show premiered to brilliant reviews across print and online magazines. (The Hindu made a special mention of me. Ahem!). I learnt so much of live performing arts through this play. I hope to work with Vinodhini soon and bring this play back on stage.
These are two hilarious Tamil musical plays written and directed by Vinodhini Vaidynathan premiered in March, 2016. The second one is a musical comedy. We did about twenty live shows before moving on with our lives. I discovered the extraordinary writer and director Vinodhini through this show. I hope to work with Vinodhini soon and be part of more such live productions.
This English play was written and directed by Tar and Dheepa Ramunajam duo from the bay area, California. I was part of the cast when the show toured across India. This play gave me some solid ideas and confidence to entertain in English.
This is the thematic light music show ‘Thillana’ produced in 2005. Thillana is a light music group I co-founded with some of my close friends in San Jose, California back in 2000. Within a year, Thillana production went onto doing grand annual productions catering to 1000+ live audiences, involving 50+ artistes across music, sketch comedy, dance, stage sets, audio video content etc. Thoduvaanam was the last Thillana show, I was part of. Thillana did a few more productions before many of us moved on to different places doing different things. Thillana gave us the learning ground for many of us for our artistic interests.
This thematic light music show produced by ‘Thillana’ in 2004, was based on rural Tamil theme. I wrote, directed and acted in the sketch comedy that played as interludes between the songs. This was quite well received and got good reviews over local community newsgroups. No facebook back then, okay! Someone noted that I am the new Bagyaraj! (that someone is a good friend, but still :)). This show gave a lot of confidence to present live shows combining music and comedy. After this show, I had some guts to say that I wanted to be an actor like Vivek and writer like Crazy Mohan! (The rest is history, lets say :-))
This thematic show by ‘Thillana’ was named after the composition by my friend and co-founder of Thillana ‘Mux Narasimhan’. We presented two own compositions, one by Mux and another by Ragavan another co-founder of the group. They both were super well-received. By this show, I built some strength in writing and directing sketch comedy and getting opportunities to sing and play rhythm. This milestone show happened in 2003.
All Thillana shows were fundraisers for charity and I remember this show back in 2002, raised some good funds for the Sankara Eye Foundation. This show was attended by 1000+ audiences and we did some grand stage backdrop, creative funny radio ads, sketch comedy interludes etc. We learnt so much and had a lot of fun.
Thillana did this thematic light music show for Bay Area Tamil Manram in 2001. With light music and sketch comedy in between, we got the confidence to hold the audience for two+ hours. We raised some decent funds for BATM.
This was the maiden show by ‘Thillana’ light music group I co-founded in the bay area, California in 2000. From this humble start, Thillana grew to be a big forum doing grand annual music productions for another eight years.
This political satire is a Tamil adaptation of 'Muazee' written by Mahesh Dattani. Mahesh Umasankar directed the play produced by Naatak in San Jose, California, USA. April 2000. This was my first intense Tamil theatre experience. This project deeply kindled my passion for performing arts particularly acting and writing.

Alex in Wonderland

Alex in Wonderland is my first solo standup special. This is a Tanglish (Tamil + English) musical comedy show. I had the fortune of performing Wonderland live for about 125 times to about 100,000 audiences across the globe from mid-2017 to mid-2019. This show is now streaming on Amazon Prime (www.primevideo.com)

Wonderland will take you down the memory lane, blending Tamil cinema music, philosophy and humor. This show won the hearts of Tamil diaspora across the globe across age groups. Nothing is more soul-satisfying than having eight+ to eighty+ year old family members sitting together watching a show and having healthy laughs.

Dates

Videos

Reviews

Please write/read audience reviews about ‘Alex in Wonderland’ and other shows at

Blog

A few blogs from my blog site Ilikeslander.blogspot.com

Yoga

Yoga is a beautiful thing that has happened to mankind. I was blessed to be exposed to various schools of Yoga including Sivananda Yoga, BKS Iyengar, Bikram Yoga and Simple Kundalini Yoga of Vethathiri Maharishi. I have been practicing yoga (on and off) since I was 24. I am a certified yoga teacher from Sivananda International Yoga Vedanta Institute. I am not actively teaching at the moment though. I highly recommend taking some classes from any yoga place near you and start practicing. Wishing you great health and peace of mind to you. Yoga shows the way!

Anba Arts

Starting April, 2019, my work is being managed by this company called Anba Arts founded by yours truly. So, for show bookings, acting assignments, singing assignments, hosting oscar nights etc, please contact Anba. Here are my folks at Anba aka Anba la sendha koottam

Anba organization is deeply influenced by Amazon leadership principles. (Not to be confused with negative work-culture reviews and news. We are talking about the good good things. :-)). At Anba, we strive to 'WORK HARD. BE KIND. SPREAD JOY'.

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