Source: Cafe Celeb
Hrithik and I have been friends since the 4th standard. I was always in Bombay Scottish and he joined around that time. We really got friendly during the summer holidays – when he came to stay with his Nanaji, who is our next door neighbor. We used to go cycling every morning at about 5 am. I would be sleeping and since the gate would be locked and the watchman too would be sleeping, Duggu would climb over the gate, come to my room, wake me up and take me cycling all over Juhu.
He was a dancer even at that age; he would dance at all these film parties in his crazy outfits. It was only when he came into adulthood that he became sort of shy and aloof. He is an introvert. We both are pretty much similar, always upto something. Hrithik and I became better friends when we joined Sydneham College, so we would drive together. In school you are in different divisions so you are not that close to that person, but in college we really became very close buddies. During summer vacations, we would get close, but when school started we would again go back to own friends, our division, then suddenly lose touch. Everything we did we did it together including college, computer class, we joined the same karate class.
In college he liked one girl, she was very pretty. He was too shy to go up to her and tell her anything. It was via this one, via that one, everybody knew that he has a crush on this girl but our friend didn’t do anything about it. At that time Hrithik was a nobody; he was just one guy in college. And now she must have realized that oh he has made it so big.
Hrithik is a good-looking boy, there were a lot of girls who had crushes on him. He is a basically shy guy and reserved kind of a boy. He never went out and he was not into that whole scene of partying, he would quietly enjoy. I knew lot of girls liked him when he came to college, they all would look at him, a tall fair good-looking guy. But he didn’t have that kind of a built like he has today, phir bhi girls found him very attractive.
In school we used to fight a lot, on stupid childish things which I don’t even remember. We have said things like, ‘I hate you,’ ‘burn in Hell,’ and walked off in a huff, all those childish things.
Now we are always talking about our films, about how to get our action. When Duggu and I are together, people would have that question mark on their faces because they don’t have a clue as to what we are talking about. We understand each other so well, that in our conversation we just take it for granted and midway start talking about things as if they have been understood by each other, so the third person sitting in the room will wonder what are we talking about. I remember when he first told me about Suzanne. I remember the words he used. I had not seen her and was going to a party where she was going to be. He described her to me so that I would recognize her. He said, ‘she looks like an angel, she has lovely straight hair, beautiful smile and she would be wearing this and you cannot miss her, when you see her you will know it’s her.’ When I arrived at the party and saw her I told the others, ‘oh, she must be Suzanne,’ and everybody looked at me and said yes that is Suzanne. I didn’t meet her at that time; I met her later with Hrithik. But she is what he said, an absolute Angel!
I have seen Duggu low many times. He feels low often and mostly to do with his work, like things not gone right.
When we went to Hawaii we learnt diving and that came of use to him when he was doing the underwater scenes in KNPH because we learnt the breathing techniques.
Whenever we have gone for holidays we have never spent extra, we traveled economy, stayed in cheaper hotels and ate cheaper meals. It’s been quite sometime since we went for a holiday together. Suzanne has been telling me, ‘get a girlfriend so four of us can go for a holiday.’
They are such lovely people, so maybe I will listen to her!
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Gang of 7 or 8 guys with similar interests, they’ve hung around together since 1985. BMX rides, Hrithik’s stunts, entertaining people on the road, partying, hiking, picnicking were all part of their growing years.
Suraj and Sippy and Kunu are Hrithik’s close friends. Kunu was in Delhi, but we met the other two of the ‘crazy lot,’ as they call themselves!
Sippy: Suzanne was a common friend of ours for years. She was in Jamnabhai and we all lived in Juhu, so we used to meet then as friends. Now, she is our Bhabhi, though we never call her that. We call her Suzzi or Angel!
Suraj: We’ve done some crazy things in college. Once we had been to Hrithik’s farm and we all got completely drunk and we actually slept on the roof of his house, which was sloping. We would go walking through the rivers, mountains with music systems on our shoulders and hockey sticks in our hands, just wailing like wild men. He is a big-hearted guy. If he likes some music he will record the stuff for everybody. He always loved dancing.
Sippy: Basically he is a clean guy. In fact we have been slightly notorious but he was not, like we had our share of girlfriends, socializing and partying but he never had any frivolous relationships and girlfriends.
Suraj: You know, he has this big problem of having jhoota. He would not eat something from somebody else’s plate. So we all used to make fun of him. He was very slow at eating. So when we used to have Coke we would finish it at once and if we wanted more we would try and sip from his glass. We would take a straw make it jhoota from inside and put it back in his glass. So he would leave his glass because he did not want to have the jhoota. (Laughs)
Sippy: He will get to the bottom of everything. If you tell him the earth is round he will like to get into details like how is it and why it is round. He will get you all the facts. He will have too many questions to ask. He will never get overfriendly with anybody but amongst us he is quite an extrovert, mastikhor and talkative.
Suraj: He is very caring. He was a star son and there were always beggars outside his place. So you would always have Hrithik distributing things to beggars. People who were handicapped, he bought them those cycles with three wheels. He used to make the beggars understand that they must do something in their lives, so he bought them shoe-polish kit and all those things.
Sippy: There was a beggar and now he has his own shop. Hrithik initially gave him 2000 Rupees to start off. Can you imagine that?
Suraj: He takes his responsibilities very seriously and he knows how to maintain his relationships.
Sippy: Every person has his or her share of bad time. At 20 he was suffering from a severe back problem. He was told by the doctors to forget about acting and he was completely distraught. Imagine, sitting at a clinic and the doctor telling you that you are finished but he fought that too. We have seen Hrithik stammering and you will not believe how he figured out all those things. Later, I sent two people to Hrithik to get over their stammering and he gave those lessons to them.
Suraj: He is a very positive soul, very inspiring. Like even if we look at him now, he works very hard on his role, on his dubbing. We feel so happy to see his success.
Sippy: After the release of KNPH we went to Taj. As we reached there Suzanne and I were thrown into different directions and Duggu was mobbed by what was initially crowd of 300 and eventually it was 600. He was in the middle, asking for help and we both were at opposite sides, wondering what to do. People started calling their girlfriends and telling them guess who is in front of me, and girls are howling and crying. Imagine a boyfriend giving the phone to Hrithik and girls telling him I love you and crazy things like that. It was his first encounter with such euphoria.
Suraj: He has got so much of patience that we admire how he handles everything. He takes his success or career or whatever you call it very smoothly.
Sippy: To us, he is always Duggu or Hrithik. He is never a star. We will whack him at times. I think at some point, he comes to reality only with us.
Suraj: Even when we watch his film we are very honest with our opinion. He asks us frame by frame about how he has performed and we add our suggestions and he actually works on those subjects.
Sippy: He loves food and he loves ice cream. Hrithik when he is in the mood can eat more than any of us. He can have 20 burgers at a time and you will wonder where it’s all going. He has got a fantastic appetite.
Suraj: He doesn’t drink much. Never been a drinker or a smoker. He likes to work out. He has a personal gym in his house and every evening he will SMS us, mind you everyday like…guys I am working out, want to join?
Sippy: I hope his acting career goes as long as he wants but he is a fantastic filmmaler. For one of his parents’ anniversaries he worked for three days and made a film on all those years of his childhood and till date. You should see the emotion that went into it with just pictures and sound and that was his gift to his parents. He used to learn singing. I used to wonder why and then I went to meet him one day and he was dubbing. I realized that because of his singing lessons he knows all the surs and ragas, so he catches the tone of his dialogue. There is that difference between those ragas that you and I can’t tell but he will tell you.
Suraj: So you see the difference between him and many others?
Duggu is a fighter to the core!