In 1991, a tall, dark and good looking 24-year-old man made his Bollywood debut with Pramod Chakravarthy’s ‘Saugandh’. A year later, with Abbas-Mastan’s college thriller ‘Khiladi’, the actor tasted success. Christened Khiladi Kumar after his first blockbuster, Akshay Kumar slowly but steadily rose to stardom. Completing 20 years in Bollywood, the actor recalls his struggle to the top, marriage to superstar Rajesh Khanna’s daughter and missing his own father. “I was in my gym swinging from the monkey bars, the day I officially completed 20 years in the industry. Honestly, I didn’t know what to feel. Back then, I never thought I would still be making movies 20 years down the line. I remember taking my family for the first screening of my debut film thinking, ‘There you go, this is enough to make them proud’. At every screening, since my first, the smiles on their faces make all the pain and effort seem worthwhile,” recalls the actor. “No matter how much you are loved or respected, the minute you lose focus, or make a small mistake, people will tear you apart. The best way to survive in this industry is to be the person ‘you’ want to be and do what ‘you’ feel is right,” adds the actor. About wife Twinkle he says, “Every man’s ultimate dream is to marry the woman he loves. But for me, marrying a woman born to a world I could only dream about was something else. My soul mate was waiting for me here. Had I not made an effort to get where I am in life, I may never have met Twinkle – the one woman who made me the man I am and the father I was destined to be.”
