Braving anonymity and disillusionment, professional highs and lows, Mohammed Iqbal Khan is finally on a roll His professional life has been a roller coaster ride. He has seen it all - from the euphoric high of acting in two films to the frustrating low of seeing his role chopped at the editing table…to the adulation his Angad avatar has finally got him, in Kaisa Ye Pyar Hai. Kashmiri hunk, Mohammed Iqbal Khan, was once a fatso. "My waist was 38 inches," he laughs. He needed the regimented discipline of a boarding school - Lawrence School, Sanawar - to shed the flab and turn into the lean, mean guy, girls are drooling over today. He dropped out during his third year of English Honours when his modelling (Airtel, Tropicana, Toyota) assignments became too hectic. Volunteering to hunt for locations in Kashmir for Agni Pankh, gave him his first foothold in the world of Hindi cinema. Then came the roles…and the disillusionment. For diehard Angad fans, Fun2shh and Bullet Ek Dhamaka are must-see films if only to see the hero in other avatars. "For almost a year, I had no work, no money and two flops. Women would make passes at me but I didn't have the time to stop and react. They thought I was gay but when you're broke, girls are the last thing on your mind." Yet it was during these days that he connected with his girlfriend Sneha, whom he'd first met during the shooting of Falguni Pathak's music video, in Hyderabad. No sparks had flown then and Iqbal headed back to college in Delhi, while Sneha returned to Mumbai, without even exchanging numbers. Three years later, they spotted each other at a restaurant in Mumbai. This time, they exchanged numbers, met up on New Year's Eve and have been inseparable since then. |