Bollywood icon wants men to look good

Bollywood actor John Abraham said Tuesday men should make the effort to tone up their bodies and get into shape. “In a chauvinistic world, men always expect the women to look good, but now it's time for men to look good and behave,'' Abraham said at a fund raiser for a US-based non-profit organisation, Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI), to build houses for the homeless across India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Ethiopia.

Abraham, who is the goodwill ambassador for HFHI and its Vice President Rick Hathaway received a Dh2 million cheque from ETA Star, a leading property developer in the UAE and its partners, on the occasion. Abraham's black leather jacket and football autographed by him, fetched an additional Dh65,000 at a charity auction held at the venue, the Ballroom of the InterContinental Hotel at Dubai Festival City. The winning bids were made by two women.

“I have participated in some of the HFHI build programmes wherein we actually go to the needy people and build homes for them. I can't see it in Dubai but back home in India that's what we do,'' said Abraham during a question and answer session anchored by radio jockey Krittika Rawat. On his most touching moments, he said it was the experience of feeding terminally ill children living in shanties near Mumbai's suburban railway tracks. “They are four and six year olds who have a limited time span of about six months,'' he disclosed.

“Be your own self,'' he said asked if he put on different acts when meeting the common man and public personalities. “I could be sitting with Obama or Mayawati, but I am my own self,'' he said referring to the US President-elect and a noted backward class political leader in India.

He laughed off a query on whether had broken a huge stereotype with his role as a gay pretender in ‘Dostana', one of the recent Bollywood releases.

Quizzed on his robust health from a woman in the audience, Abraham said there were no short cuts and the secret was gymming, getting adequate food and sleeping well.
He enjoyed his football, said the actor adding, “Unfortunately in India cricket is like religion.''

Rahul Sharma, a well known exponent of the Santoor, a 100-string instrument originally associated with folk music in Kashmir, northern Indian border state, played some great music accompanied by wife Barkha on the ‘Tanpura', another stringed instrument and Aditya Kalyanpur on the ‘Tabla', a northern Indian percussion instrument.