Arjun Rampal, 40, to date remains India’s most distinct supermodel with his own style and image. Ahead of his upcoming film ‘Inkaar’, which he believes to be his best performance so far, he talks to TOI about why we don’t have supermodels anymore, the lesson he learnt from Amitabh Bachchan and what spirituality means to him. How did you get into modelling? Born in Jabalpur, I was brought up in Deolali, where my father ran a small business of making fire extinguishers. I studied at the international school at Kodaikanal, after which I was visiting Mumbai with my friends when at RG’s nightclub, Rohit Bal saw me and asked me if I was a model. I was doing Economics honours at Hindu College in Delhi when I again bumped into Rohit (Gudda) at a night club. To my surprise, he recognised me and came up to me and said, ‘Aren’t you Arjun?’. He offered me to model for him and my first question to him was, ‘What will I get?’ He said, ‘First you need some clothes’. I landed doing my first shoot with Bharat Sikka as the photographer. After a few days, Gudda called me to his office and showed me the poster of this guy who looked really good in Black and White and he said ‘That’s you’. I couldn’t believe what I saw. He had turned me into a model. Initially, people thought that I had an attitude problem as I couldn’t understand why people would walk a 20-metre ramp for five to six days as it was not rocket science, but then I made friends and became a part of the circuit and moved to Mumbai. Milind Soman’s girlfriend, Neerja Shah, got me a paying guest accommodation at the Piramal House at Worli Sea Face, where I believe Amitabh Bachchan also lived when he first came to Mumbai. I was told it was a vegetarian house, where I could not drink or bring girls. Knowing me at that point in time, I was thrown out bag and baggage in a week by one of the older Piramal ladies as she found some chicken bones in the dustbin. I shifted to Lokhandwala and bought a small apartment. I continued to model till I was 23, after which I moved to London and New York to model there, to put myself through the test of going abroad and seeing myself against the top models of the world. During my college days, I used to see guys my age struggling not knowing what to do in their life, whereas my life was fine and I was making more money than what they would probably make after their first job. So, I went through this spiritual fight questioning myself whether I deserved all that I had and went to Dharamshala for six months to practise Buddhism. How did you meet Mehr? She was the person I walked the ramp with in my first professional fashion show. She is four years older to me and was a model whose poster I had in my hostel room. I was so nervous walking with her that I held her hand and she thought I was making a pass at her. Though we were good friends, we were not in a relationship till I was 25 when I returned from the US, after which we got married. You brought in the New Year inside the Golden Temple. Does visiting a religious place mean being spiritual? Going to religious places gives me clarity. When I am sitting there, I am in a state of gratitude with my defence mechanism down and am open to receiving that energy, that gives me clarity as at that time, you are listening to your heart. The heart shows you the direction in life. The mind exists only to execute your emotion. Inkaar deals with the subject of sexual harassment in a corporate set-up. Is there sexual harassment in the world of fashion and films of which you are a part? There would be traces in every industry. However, it is more susceptible to happen in a closed environment of a corporate set-up, where you work closely for long hours everyday, over a longer period of time. In fashion and films, you work together for a short period and then move on. If a female sleeps with a younger boy, she is termed cougar or a cradle-snatcher. If a man sleeps with a woman, we assume that the woman is doing it for a professional advantage. Surprisingly, nobody says ‘love’ even though it could be mutual and healthy. Research has shown that 50% of all sexual harassment cases started with the two people having a relationship.
