His Own Way

With their wide-set eyes,narrow noses,square jaw lines,bulging biceps and carefully spiked hair,the John Abrahams and Neil Nitin Mukeshs of Bollywood rule the hearts of teenyboppers. And because these actors have an almost identical look,they’ve even become interchangeable for various franchise films and romantic comedies —you know the Dostanas and Aa Dekhen Zaras. But a few recent events have convinced me that it’s not easy to pin John bootylicious Abraham down.

When he was in the city to launch a fashion event,he waxed eloquent about his girlfriend Bipasha Basu’s last Bengali film,Sob Charitra Kalponik. Now that’s an unsettling development for media fiends like us. You don’t expect a John Abraham to sit through a Rituprano Ghosh film,even if it stars his girlfriend. I mean,wouldn’t he rather pump iron or play video games? Surely there must be an ulterior motive—is he pitching for a role in Ghosh’s next? But then he used words like “verbose” and “layered” to describe the film and you couldn’t help but wonder…And if that’s not enough,Abraham started gushing about his girlfriend. And it’s not the patronising look-at-the-hot-chic-I-have-bagged tone,Abraham seemed to be genuinely in awe of his girlfrined. Bipasha,he says,is truly “empowered and intelligent”. He also informed us that he loves the way his girlfriend looks nowadays. “She has worked really hard on her body and is looking better than ever. Nowadays,when we hit the gym together,she critiques my posture,and I take her advice seriously,” said Abraham. Now I may not be an expert on alpha male psychology,but I surely can vouch for the fact that not many iron-pumping ‘macho man’ will own up to taking gym advice from their girlfriends.

But the last straw came in the form of a gesture. A gesture that shattered my perception of the man who I thought was the ‘himbo prototype’. At the press conference to launch the newest fashion week in the city,Abraham shared the stage with a number of Kolkata designers,including Mona from the legendary Mona Pali duo. After the photo session,Abraham took the mike from the rather smitten emcee of the event and started talking about Mona and Pali. “When I strated of as a model,Monaji and Paliji were already stalwarts of the field. I remember how they made me walk in a lehenga in one particular show and that really got me noticed. I can’t thank these people enough. New designers need to learn a thing or two from people like them. You don’t need stars like me to promote your work. Your works should speak for themselves,” he twinkled.

I sighed. Thank you Mr Abraham,now I have to search for some other steretype to fit you in…