Crazy Mohan

"Crazy" Mohan
Mohan in the play "Chocolate Krishna" in 2015
Born	Mohan Rangachari (1952-10-16) 16 October 1952 (age 64)
Occupation	Comedy actor Playwright Screenwriter
Family	Maadhu Balaji (brother)

Crazy Mohan (born 16 October 1952 as Mohan Rangachari) is an Indian actor, comedian, screenwriter and playwright. An engineer by profession, Mohan started writing stage plays and established his own drama troupe called "Crazy Creations" in 1979. In addition to dramas and tele-serials, he has worked as a dialogue writer on a number of comedy films. He has written over 30 plays, worked on over 40 films (and played cameo roles in each of these films), and written 100 short stories.

Mohan was a student at the College of Engineering, Guindy, where he graduated as a Mechanical Engineer in 1973. His guide was his classmate S. Ravi, who was the President of Tamil Manram. Before becoming a full-time writer, Mohan was working at Sundaram - Clayton Limited.

At the College of Engineering, Guindy, in Feb 1972, he first wrote Great Bank Robbery, a skit for an inter-collegiate contest, for which he received the Best Actor and Best Writer awards, which were handed over by Kamal Haasan. It was followed by scripts for his younger brother Maadhu Balaji's drama troupe at Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda College, Chennai. The first full-length play he wrote was Crazy Thieves in Paalavakkam for Natakapriya in 1976, which was a run-away hit and gave him the nom de plume "Crazy" Mohan. He also wrote scripts for Tenant Commandments and One More Exorcist.

After writing for other productions, Mohan decided to start his own troupe and founded Crazy Creations in 1979. The troupe has since created over 30 plays with original scripts and staged over 4,500 shows all over India and abroad. His play Chocolate Krishna had been staged 500 times within three years. His brother Maadhu Balaji, who is an actor, plays the hero in all his dramas.

The first feature film he worked on was K. Balachander's Poikkal Kudhirai for which he wrote the dialogues. The film itself was based on Mohan's drama Marriage made in Saloon. He went on to write dialogues for several comedy films, particularly starring Kamal Haasan, which include Sathi Leelavathi, Kaathala Kaathala, Michael Madana Kama Rajan, Apoorva Sagodharargal, Avvai Shanmughi, Thenali, Panchathanthiram and Vasool Raja MBBS. The 2006 film Jerry had story and screenplay by Mohan and featured Mohan's entire theatre team, including its director S. B. Khanthan. He has also acted in supporting or cameo roles in the films he wrote the dialogue or script for.