Mantra and Anirudh in Calcutta. Picture by Aranya Sen

These boys are the soul of the show,” Ramon Chibb, vice-president, head of content & operations, UTV Broadcasting, muses as we wait for the duo to walk in. The moment they do, one can see why. Anirudh Sharma — oversized clothes, spiked hair, funky trinkets — has wacky written all over him. His soul mate is Mantra — all chic, sonorous voice and straight-faced repartees.

They are the Bindass boys, hosting the channel’s stand-up caper Hass Ley India, relaunched with the new name. Once they settle down, it is hard to keep Anirudh quiet. “We are so popular even uncles and aunties recognise us at airports,” he grins. Their show, he rattles off, is scripted but a lot is off-the-cuff. “Our writers are straight from college. On Monday, we bisect Bollywood. On Tuesday, we take up a cause, like no spitting on roads. Wednesday is our day out, when we are allowed to pick on anything around the world. On Thursday, we talk to a celebrity guest.”

At last, when Mantra gets the chance to talk, one learns — surprise, surprise — that he is actually Puranjit Dasgupta, that too of vintage north Calcutta stock. “My family owns the Dasgupta bookstore on College Street,” he smiles, revelling in the shock on the listener’s face. “Actually, I am the black sheep of the family. When I came back from Mumbai the first time, at a family get-together, a lunch table full of lawyers and doctors asked me what I did. I told them I did radio shows. They said, ‘That’s ok. But what do you do?’”

With eight years on the microphone behind him, Puranjit is one of the oldest FM radio jockeys in the country. “He is the SRK of radio, man,” Anirudh butts in.

The Punjabi lad himself was “goofing around with chicks” and anchoring on the channel etc Punjabi when the show fell into his lap. “Mantra and I met on the sets. We hit it off instantly.”

The chemistry works well as they do the show in tandem. “Mera shakal hi aisa hai ki no one takes me seriously. Mantra asks nice questions. Main beech mein kuch utpatang poochh leta hoon,” says Anirudh. At the receiving end so far have been the likes of Shekhar Suman, Shamita Shetty, Rajpal Yadav and the Chak De! girls. And even Mantra himself. As he adjusts his shades, Anirudh pipes up: “He is like my wife… takes ages to get ready. He has to have his superstar look!”

If one (Anirudh) admires Jaaved Jaafferi, Shekhar Suman and Kishore Kumar, the other (Mantra) is a Chaplin devotee. Yet both have a common spiritual streak. “We go to the temple when we’ve had enough of laughing.”