Mr Christos Mojo

I was a civil engineer in Sydney,I liked to re-do old houses. He begins what would be a winding,non-linear narrative told in capricious fragments. Christo,now 72,walks with a limp,is balding rather than shaven-headed,fit but not barrel-chested,and as bearded and tall as we remember him. He pauses to rummage through his pouch,as if looking for a memory. And a memory it is. On his PAN card,a picture of him,with a head full of hair,a neat moustache and no trace of a beard. When Sanjay Khan gave me my first role in Hindi cinema I was to play an evil magician in Abdullah (1980) he said,shave your head and grow a beard, says the Australian. The rest was easy. Sometimes I think I must have played those roles in another life.

If Sanjay Khan was Christos mentor,Parveen Babi,the Seventies siren,was his unlikely muse. Its a story to rival all stories. It was in 1976,I think. I was in South Africa on military engagement when someone left a magazine on my bed with the picture of a beautiful woman on the cover. I read that her name was Parveen Babi and I thought,I must go to Bombay and meet her. I put the magazine in my briefcase, he says,in his characteristic gruff voice,between gulps of cappuccino. A chance diversion from a construction career in Oman prior to which he had lived in Germany,America,Zimbabwe and Vietnam,among other places,doing,among other things,military work,physical training and modelling landed him in Juhu. Here,walking into the erstwhile Holiday Inn by the beach,Christo would fortuitously bump into a scriptwriter he had met in Hollywood. The writer would introduce him to Sanjay Khan and Christo would go on to successively,and successfully,play the white goon/hitman/smuggler nothing more,nothing less in dozens of movies. He would get to know Babi on the sets of The Burning Train (1980) and work with her in several films including the star-studded Ashanti (1982),and they would become friends and neighbours.

Juhu was also where Christo would meet his second wife he has three children from his first marriage to a German Nargis Cama,a petite figure walking along the coast where he liked to wind-surf. She would be the third woman to bear his children. Yes,there had been an affair,and a lost love. She was Maria Francesco,a woman Christo left behind in the Philippines after she got pregnant by him. When she gave me the news,I was just about to set out on a mission to track down a CIA spyship that I suspected had sunk near Libya. If I could find it,I could make a lot of money. So I took her and her childhood sweetheart to an island and got them married. I had to, Christo explains in the best way he can. Read my book,its all there. You will probably cry when you read it, he adds after a long pause,referring to his autobiography,Flashback: My Life and Times in Bollywood and Beyond,to be published in June by Penguin.

A sense of unease fills the silence. Finally,Christo puts on his glasses and reads out the foreword of his book,written by friend and fellow actor Tom Alter,that fondly looks back on the feats of Robertos strength and his longing to play a romantic role. I am probably the last romanticist this side of the Equator, Christo says,misty-eyed. Some of the actors I have worked with earn crores now. I dont earn crores. Akshay Kumars first film was with me. At that time,we used to talk about what screen name to give him. I met him recently when I was in Bombay we are good friends, he says. Before Christo came to Bombay,he had been offered a part in Francis Ford Coppolas Apocalypse Now,but when a caster found out he was a civil engineer,he asked him to build Cambodian-style temples for their set in the Philippines. I worked with an American sculptor. I did a good job. The guy who played my part went on to become a famous actor after that film, Christo says.

What Christo would like to be remembered for is playing Ahmad Shah Abdali in The Great Maratha,a TV series by Sanjay Khan. That was a challenge, he says. His close connection with Khan lasted well into his retirement from Bollywood. It was in 2006,as resident director of health and fitness at Khans resort in Bangalore,The Golden Palms,that Christo suffered his worst setback debilitating spinal stenosis,perhaps from doing dangerous stunts and 500 push-ups a day. Surgery left him with a limp and he overheard a guest ask Khan why a man with a limp was teaching yoga. I quit. But hey,I could play the limping man in a film now, he jokes.

Christo lived on in Bangalore,he had tired of Mumbai. I visit often. My wife doesnt like Bangalore she lives in our three-bedroom apartment in Juhu with our youngest son, he says. His children are spread out across the world; his mother is in a nursing home in Germany,where he went to high school and where his brother now lives. In his mind,as in his book,he strings them all together,closer to his life. He is a Buddhist who likes guns,a swimmer who misses the sea,an ex-villain who enjoys cooking sweet potatoes. It is hard to tell the truth. In my book,I have had to alter it in places, he says,truthfully. I could write several books about my life. His books would likely be populated by Parsis and peppered with World War II anecdotes; theyd tease out from the interstices of his life forgotten episodes from Seychelles and Vietnam; theyd dwell on his martial arts training under Bruce Lees guru Hoshiro,who,Christo says,is wanted by the Chinese mafia.

As the morning gives way to noon,Christo cheers up,reciting Ghalib impromptu and singing Stormy Monday he has lent his vocals to a jazz concert in Mumbai,he says and for good measure,launches into full-blown dialogue with a stony face. Achha hua tum aageya… ek bahut buri khabar hai… he sneers menacingly. …Warna na ye basti rahegi na basne wale! he roars. Bob Christo,the man,hasnt lost his mojo.