From bullying in school to stumbling blocks in life, Harish faced everything with a firm attitude and never gave up. He always wanted to do something different in life and so is doing it by serving people through ‘Compassionate Clowns.’

Harish Bhuvan runs an organization called ‘Compassionate Clowns Counseling Center’ in Bangalore. Through this, they clown around hospitals to spread joy by singing, dancing and goofing around to bring a sense of kinship in the lives of others. At present, they are associated with seven hospitals in Bangalore and are also spreading this concept to other states of the country as well as abroad. Apart from this, he also trains children to be aware of childhood sexual abuse. Consequently, his team set a Guinness World Record for training the largest gathering in one go. Besides, he provides consultancy to startups in curating communities.

Harish was born in Vadodara, Gujarat and did his schooling from there itself. Leaving Vadodara at the age of eighteen, he shifted to Bangalore to pursue BBM from there. But due to some reasons, he was expelled from college and again landed in Gujarat. There he enrolled for BA in Psychology from MS University of Baroda. There too, leaving his graduation incomplete, he went to Christ University Bangalore and finally did his graduation in Psychology, Sociology and Economics.

Thereafter, he took a month of teacher’s training, and joined ‘Teach For India,’ a non-profit organization in Chennai. Soon, due to some turmoil in his personal life, he went into depression and to get out of all the debts that he had taken, he took a job in the Department of Computer Science in IIT Mumbai. There he worked for one-and-a-half-year designing curriculum for students who study Computer Science in schools.

One day, randomly, he saw a clown on a road and he also thought of doing something like that but in hospitals for cancer patients and that’s when his journey of ‘Compassionate Clowns’ started. Alongside, he also got multiple promotions in his job. Then he took a break for two years to travel around the world and gained experience doing a variety of work.

Regarding his childhood, he says that he had not had a pleasant childhood as his father was in the industrial construction business, and he used to travel around the country. And so his mother raised him and his sister alone. He shares that he was a victim of bullying because of the color of his skin in school till his sixth grade. He was in such deep trauma that he had set out to end his life but somehow he survived. Slowly he put himself in a good environment and moved ahead with good friends who are still in his contact.

Talking about role models, Harish says he takes inspiration from people whom he met during his professional career with high profile, socio-economic status and rich materialistic life. Moving forward in his professional journey, every person tends to inspire him in some or other way. Besides, he considers his family and all his mentors as his role models, from whom he has learned something and has been able to move forward in life.

During the Covid pandemic, Harish’s work had simply stopped because the hospitals were the most dangerous areas to be exposed to this deadly disease. So sitting idle at home, he thought of trying his hand in some other thing and together with one of his friends, he co-founded his second organization called ‘Whaterr Solutions’, which is now ten months old. To lighten the impact of this pandemic on the mental health of people, they give therapies in order to provide holistic mental solutions to them.

When asked about his achievements, Harish says that during his travels, he found his soulmate to whom he got married and it is an achievement for him. In addition to this, because of his clowning work, when the patients, children and people bless him, it is no less than an achievement for him.

About his mistakes, Harish says that like any other individual, he too has made a lot of mistakes in life due to which he got to learn several things and was successful in moving ahead in life.

Harish advises the young generation to do whatever they want to do in life, but definitely acquire the skills to provide convenience and facilitation to other people through any situation. Further he says don’t compete rather collaborate, never compare and don’t criticize anyone. He suggests everyone to practice empathy. And if you have mastered empathy then no one can stop you from moving forward in any field.