Quarantine Chronicles: Varun turns mentalist to beat the lockdown blues

Spend an hour with Varun, and you would know what fun he has had with his cousins and friends this lockdown. “The first half of the lockdown was pretty interesting. We had travelled to our farmhouse in Puducherry and we were there when lockdown was announced. But there was no dearth of fun as I had my entire family around. Everytime we visit the place, there is this French game called Petanque we play with heavy metal balls and target the opponents’ boules as they call it. It burns a lot of calories and that is such a wonderful game if you are planning to sweat it out outdoors,” he says and explains to us the rules. After returning to Chennai, Varun was back to playing cricket with his cousins. “We play cricket indoors in the lawn. For quite a long time, I haven’t been jogging or been doing my cardio workouts. It is only in the last few days, I have started to jog with my masks and sanitisers on all the time,” he explains.

 “Do you believe in psychology or reading people’s minds? Have you ever met a mentalist or played fun mind games before?” he asks and invites us over a video call. “I have been reading a lot of books based on psychology, which are intriguing. It has become one of my favourite pastimes. Moreover, I have been following videos of a mentalist on YouTube and have been learning a few fun tricks off his sleeves,” says Varun.

 He takes a deck of cards and asks us to think of a specific rank and suit. “I can tell you that you have fixed eight of clubs,” and flips all 52 cards around that resemble the same rank and suit. “This is just reading your mind and I can convince you to do what I want you to,” he says. We play another couple of games in which Varun convincingly wins and says, “After the lockdown is over, I need to get back to the sets of Joshua and Gautham Menon had discussed with the film team a few shoot options. We will officially keep you posted on that,” concludes the actor.