Body Beautiful

If Mukesh comes across as a tad too cocky after this declaration,then maybe it’s time to climb down your high horse now. Mukesh’s confidence is in keeping with the philosophy of a new Bollywood,where the male body is as celebrated as the female one. Where an entire entourage of make-up professionals,trainers and designers work around the clock before a John Abraham wriggles his hips under a shower in a dangerously skimpy brief and even has-been 50-year-olds like Shekhar Suman work for months on their perfect abs. A far cry from hairy Anil Kapoor days indeed (remember his shirtless romp in the hay with Dimple Kapadia in Jaanbaaz which reportedly left Dimple almost choking with hairballs in her throat?).

Mukesh is clearly a man who takes care of his appearance. “We need to look good,” he smiled. However,looking good was not the idea when he was asked to strip for the much talked-about nude scene in the forthcoming Jail. “It’s a very realistically shot scene. We wanted to project the trauma,” he said. Within hours of the shoot,pictures of Mukesh being strip-searched were flashed all over. “I was still shooting when my mother called up and she sounded really upset. She wanted to know what was happening. I had to convince her that it was not for real,” he laughed. Did he feel exploited when his nude pictures were being widely-circulated in the media. “That scene was really important for the film. Madhur Bhandarkar is not the kind of filmmaker who would sensationalise such things. I knew that such a scene will cause quite a stir. I was expecting this sort of reaction which is why I wasn’t upset at all,” he said.