John Abraham is 45. Which is the start of middle age according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Only he does not look it. I have known him from 1999. That’s when he won the Gladrags Manhunt Contest that catapulted him to fame, fortune and films. John was 27 then, a good looking hunk. But he’s a better looking hunk at 45 today.Eighteen years later. Amazing. It’s universally known that he leads a good and clean life. Early to bed and early to rise. No smoking, no drinking, a healthy diet. And plenty of exercise and outdoor sports. But that’s not entirely the secret to his rugged good looks. Genetics plays a role, too. He’s born of a dignified Malayali father and handsome Irani mother. Abraham John and Firoza Irani. The evening I called on John to do this interview, I saw them both. We were in a glass and wooden outhouse in his office garden at Pali Hill. I was having cutting chai. John, green tea. A wintry breeze scattered the dead leaves outside. A gardener watered the plants. John was dressed in faded denims and a Deus tee. That’s the name of an Australian motorbike manufacturer. He looked at home. But then he was home. His office is in a small white building screened by high walls where his parents also stay. John’s cars, jeeps and bikes are parked here. The outhouse is where he holds all his meetings. He pointed to a huge whiteboard on the wall. “This is where all my ideas come from,” he said. Football agents from London and Belgium were waiting to discuss his Indian Super League team NorthEast United FC from Guwahati. Kicking off his rubber slippers, John put up his feet. “Let’s talk,” he said.

"Hard work got me here more than just my physicality. I smile and accept the praise today, tomorrow is another day, I try to be normal.”

I appraised him critically. Like I said, he’s 45 but does not look it. He’s not had a release since Force 2 in November 2016. And his next film is his home production Parmanu that’s slated to hit the screens in February 2018. But I know John has not suffered the slightest dip in popularity. He’s the only Bollywood actor who’s got female fans as young as 12 and as old as 80. They all think he’s eye candy. Apparently stardom, when accompanied by big biceps, six-pack abs and a sexy butt, comes at an awkward price. But he takes it in his giant stride. “Look at the bright side,” John once told me, “at the end of the day I can’t say I don’t like this space. But I’m not a sex symbol. I’m a softie, people see through my muscularity, they aren’t afraid to talk to me, to feel my abs and biceps and see if they are real. I don’t mind that.” We have been friends from before John became one of Bollywood’s hottest properties. And I can tell you he’s common man-middle class at heart. Some nights after work, if his car and driver are out on an errand, he takes an autorickshaw from his Pali Hill office to his home at Land’s End a few kilometres away. He also still blushes every time little girls tell him he’s sexy! “What to do,” he said to me embarrassed, “sexy is a part of their lingo!” But he protested, “Hard work got me here more than just my physicality. I smile and accept the praise today, tomorrow is another day, I try to be normal.”

"I made Parmanu so that today’s millennial youth feel proud to be Indians. I want every youngster in the audience to feel cool about being part of this great country."

We talked about Parmanu, his patriotic film based on the nuclear bomb tests the Indian Army conducted on May 11, 1998 at Pokhran in Jaisalmer. It ought to have released on December 8. But John and his co-producers pushed the date to avoid a possible box-office clash with the controversial Padmavati. He’s best at raw, hardcore action and comedy, even the slapstick kind, I wondered why John produced and acted in a film like Parmanu. To imbibe the atmosphere, get the right feel of what happened then, to understand what the Indian scientists, soldiers and engineers experienced at the time of these nuclear tests, director Abhishek Sharma shot the film during May and June in the scorching heat of the Rajasthan desert when the temperature was a blistering 52 degrees C. John said. “I made Parmanu so that today’s millennial youth feel proud to be Indians. I want every youngster in the audience to feel cool about being part of this great country. It’s sad to say, if I were to ask anybody what happened on May 11, 1998, few would know. When I made Madras Cafe (a 2013 National Award winning political spy thriller about India’s intervention in Sri Lanka’s civil war that ends with the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi), I ran the film past test viewing audiences in different parts of the country, and their reaction was ‘the former PM dies and John Abraham doesn’t save him’. I was shocked. Our younger audience really does not know the history of India. It’s always been my passion to read political subjects. You can ask me what’s happening in Venezuela, Syria, North Korea, Japan and I may have a certain idea because I read about the ecosystem of the world. But isn’t it more important to know what’s happening in your own country? In May 1998, I was doing my MBA. And I remember watching the news in which a farmer living on the outskirts of Pokhran was being interviewed and asked about the cracks that developed in his house after the nuclear tests. He said, ‘Ghar toot gaya lekin Hindustan ban gaya!’ That stayed in my head. And it gives me goosebumps even today. I made Parmanu for this reason. Every Indian must know what happened on May 11, 1998 and what adversity India had to face to find its place on the world nuclear map.”

"Aditya Chopra, who I really respect and love, once told me that my most intelligent choices are the films that have failed or are different."

John’s not had a release this year because Parmanu got pushed. His next film is likely to be the dark untitled thriller about a cop and killer that director Milap Zaveri is making for Nikhil Advani which brings John and Manoj Bajpayee together after Shootout at Wadala in 2013. Did being out of the limelight make John anxious? “I’ve never been anxious about getting a film out. I think you must make the film you believe in because the audience will see that. If you don’t believe in the film, they will know you ran after it for money or because somebody told you it’s a commercial film. I don’t do that. My last release was Force 2 on November 18, 2016. After that nothing. Parmanu was to come out on December 8. Unfortunately it’s been pushed. All films have been pushed. I’m hoping for a good release in 2018. There’s still a lot of special effects to do on the film. But in the intervening period, there were five films I refused that have been announced and are being made with big actors. I won’t tell you which ones. I didn’t like the scripts. I heard the producers out. And I thought, ‘Thank God I’m a producer myself and making better films!’ In Bollywood, old waste is still being recycled. It’s great for the environment but bad for the film industry. The kind of films I truly enjoy making are the No Smoking and Water kind. Aditya Chopra, who I really respect and love, once told me that my most intelligent choices are the films that have failed or are different. Other actors try to create a career path on commercial cinema but I choose to do something different all the time. Look at my trajectory. Even as a producer of films like Kabul Express, Vicky Donor, Madras Cafe and now Parmanu, I’ve always enjoyed doing something different. There’s no question of risk involved. The risk factor is for those who have a lot of money. When you have no money where is the risk? I don’t drive my production house with me as the actor. I see a script and decide which actor it should go to. It could be Varun Dhawan, Tiger Shroff, Ayushmann Khurrana and Diana Penty, Kangana Ranaut, Anushka Sharma. My productions are not driven by star value but by content. That’s very important.”

"Stallone’s my biggest inspiration. The Rocky films are hugely motivating, their music is stirring, tracks like Eye of The Tiger rouse me to push myself even harder. When I’m down and out, I watch the Rocky films again."

In the meantime, his JA Entertainment has produced its first regional film. It’s called Savita Damodar Paranjpe and it’s in Marathi. “Our best regional films today are in Marathi or Malayalam,” John told me. “And that’s because their budgets are so small, they have to rely on content. Many years ago, I saw this Marathi play Savita Damodar Paranjpe at Shivaji Mandir in Dadar. And I thought, when I become a producer I would make this into a Hindi film. But then why Hindi? I realised it works as a Marathi film. I decided to produce it. I got Subodh Bhave, he’s the finest Marathi actor, and the cinema’s best director Swapna Waghmare Joshi, to work on it. I’m proud of this film. It’s in post production. Our Marathi films are fantastic. Marathi content is being remade into Hindi films. Whether they will work or not, I don’t know. I may produce more Marathi films. May be Malayalam too. Actors are beggars. We always go searching for that little appreciation. But as a producer too, I am looking for appreciation, so I will do films accordingly.”

His lovely financial analyst and investment banker wife Priya Runchal, whom the media speculates about endlessly, passed by the outhouse with their dogs Bailey and Sia barking madly and leaping about her. John and Priya are a very private couple. And the only time I have seen him visibly upset is when a section of the media went after his wife. Now he spoke about Priya. “She’s a very shy person,” he said, “and extremely intelligent. She’s ex UCLA (University of California, LA), Goldman Sachs (a leading global investment banking, securities and investment management company), World Bank and London Business School. And she chooses to work rather than walk the red carpet. I respect her choice. She handles different departments. I’m into films and production. Priya manages the football team and other startups are we are looking into.” Which reminded John that the football agents from London and Belgium were waiting.

As I got up to leave, I noticed a poster of Sylvester Stallone as the iconic fictional Hollywood boxer Rocky lying in one corner of his office. John Abraham caught me looking at it and said, “Stallone’s my biggest inspiration. The Rocky films are hugely motivating, their music is stirring, tracks like Eye of The Tiger rouse me to push myself even harder. When I’m down and out, I watch the Rocky films again. Stallone’s character ‘Rocky’ is a great fighter. But he’s also a good human being. A family man, God-fearing and with strong values. My father once told me, ‘Son, you don’t need to go to church to be a good person. You need to do good to be a good person. Character is who you are when no one is watching’.”