By Joginder Tuteja

From Shahrukh Khan in ‘Om Shanti Om’ to Aamir Khan in ‘Ghajini’, majority of actors today are concentrating hard on getting the 3-letter word- ABS. The trend has pretty much spread like wildfire and while very recently it was the turn of an unsuspecting Shahid Kapoor to ‘discover’ that he too had managed to develop 8 pack abs for ‘Chance Pe Dance’, now Emraan Hashmi has acquired quite a few for himself too.

Emraan agrees though that getting his 6-pack abs for his upcoming film ‘Once Upon A Time In Mumbai’ wasn’t really an easy task.

“First and foremost the entire timeline to do so was quite short. Milan (Luthria), the director of the film, gave me just three months to prepare and believe me, that’s not really a comfortable timeline”, rues Emraan, “I was also shooting for ‘Tum Mile’ at the same time and in that film, I had an entirely different look. I had to maintain that as well. This is why I had to continue slogging working out during the shooting of both the films. Those were tough days.”

No wonder, Emraan isn’t planning to keep the 6-pack abs for eternity.

“No ways”, he reacts instantly, “I have missed a lot in life due to this entire working out. As I mentioned earlier, first and foremost I have to get back to my original self for my wife’s sake. She likes me the way I always was. Secondly, I want to again begin eating all that she has to offer. She cooks well but I could hardly eat since I was really conscious about my food intake. I had to live on low carb diet. There is an optimum state that one can reach in building a body like this but the toughest part is to maintain it.”

Even though the film is about underworld and requires histrionics more than body show, can one expect a song and dance sequence on the lines of ‘Dard-E-Disco’ a la Shah Rukh Khan in ‘Om Shanti Om’? Given the fact that in Bollywood it is not really a tough task to write a scene at the last moment stating that it was a ‘demand of the situation’, it would hardly be a surprise if Emraan’s bare body is splashed all over in days to come, especially the ones leading towards the film’s release.

“Come on, the film is about underworld in the 70s. How can you expect me to perform in an item number there? As of now, that’s not happening for sure unless Milan decides to do something special around this”, laughs Emraan.

-Sampurn Media