Look back laugh

We got Saloni Gaur, everyone's fav funny girl, to recap 2023's top moments. Hits, losses, wows, livers, Jhandeya. Did we really live through it all?

- Arshia Dhar

Even Saloni Gaur can't believe it's the end of 2023 already. The comedian, mimicry artist and digital creator is 24, and made it to Forbes India's Top 100 Digital Stars list this year. She hit 5 million followers on YouTube. And, she got married, that one milestone that many fans still refuse to believe. "I didn't post anything about it for the longest time and then I suddenly did. My followers were surprised and are still wondering if this is fake," she says.

Gaur grew up in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh, and now lives in Delhi. She shot to fame in 2019 with her character, Nazma Aapi, a middle-class Muslim woman jadedly commenting on the circus of society and life. But she's fast expanded her repertoire to include other stock types: Adarsh Bahu, Pinky Dogra, Doordarshan Didi. She hosted the variety-sketch show Uncommon Sense With Saloni on Sony Liv in 2020. She had a role in the 2022 drama Campus Diaries. She's polished up her impersonations of Kangana Ranaut, Sonam Kapoor, Ananya Panday and others.

It's, by all accounts, a busy life. Yet, she's found time to pay attention to the ups and downs of 2023. Here's how she viewed the year gone by, even as Nazma Aapi slips in every now and then.

King Khan is back on screen.

Like pretty much any living, breathing film buff, Gaur is a Shah Rukh Khan fan. She caught a firstday first-show screening of Pathaan. “His wins feel personal," she says. "Only last night my family and I were watching some film and then we realised we weren't having fun So we ended up watching Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001) instead. I have never seen people whistle for any other movie star as much as they do for him. It's fun to watch a film in the theatre only when it's a Shah Rukh Khan film." 25 Jan

India's Oscar moment.