What The Kiss of Life tells you about Emraan Hashmi the actor, the father

Amidst chaos inside his head and his heart weighing him down with fear and anxiety, a father picks up the phone and calls his four-year-old son who is battling cancer. He mimics his son's favourite superhero, Batman, and explains to him the key of being a superhero - stay strong, discard junk food and take the needle pricks.

Emraan Hashmi is not just a charming face or an unconventional actor. He is not just bold in his character portrayals. Hashmi, or Emmi as his family members call him, is also a father who is level-headed, unfazed and unyielding.

The Kiss of Life is about that time in Hashmi's life when his son needed him the most, the time when all his other experiences paled in comparison to the tennis ball tumour that invaded his son's kidney.

The chapters alternate between the present - the hospital wards, chemo and the shivers - and the past, where Hashmi battles his own doubts of being an actor, the ups and downs in his career, the media branding him as a serial kisser, the typecasting and so on.

Hashmi's book also has extensive research material on cancer. He talks about guidelines, a nutrition plan, hospital procedures and the will power to fight the C monster.

The ordeal

The father-actor got candid in a conversation. "I don't know if I would have written a book if Ayaan, my son, hadn't been diagnosed. This has been a life-changing incident and I thought there was something worth writing about. After writing quite a bit about the ordeal, I realised it is all too heavy for a reader. Bilal Siddiqi, who has co-authored the book, suggested I intersperse it with some interesting and funny anecdotes from the time when I was struggling as an actor," says Ayaan's real superhero.

There are anecdotes from his first day on the sets of Footpath, where his first shot had to be retaken 45 times; the time when Mahesh Bhatt (or Bhatt Sahab as Emmi calls him) took him along to Ooty to discipline him while shooting for Raaz; how he couldn't help feel a little hurt when he saw Jimmy Sheirgill in Yeh Zindagi Ka Safar, a movie he opted out of; how uneasy it was filming intimate scenes in a room of squeamish crew and how the actor in him grew despite him thinking he was not cut out for the part.

So, while you are smiling during some chapters, others pull at your heartstrings. Hashmi, at times, spends hours wondering where he went wrong as a parent. He stares in wonder at how tough his wife and sweetheart, Parveen, becomes and at times, appears helpless when he has to leave his family during such a testing time, for a shoot schedule.

The ordeal is taxing enough without having to relive it through a book. "In bits, it was disturbing. But I think it was more therapeutic than disturbing. It was kind of a closure. When you get to express it once more, it eases the pain. As time goes by, you will forget it. This way, Ayaan can look back and know what he has been through," Hashmi says.

In The Kiss of Life, Hashmi has also delved deep into his family history.

Anwar Hashmi, Hashmi's father, goes to Karachi in search of his estranged father, Shaukat Hashmi, who had left his wife Mehr when Hashmi's father was just seven. Hashmi writes the incident with vivid details, just as his father had narrated it to him.

Another character that is fondly remembered in the book is Hashmi's grandmother Mehr - or Purnima as the film industry would name her. "She was a strong-willed woman. We would call her the 'Mafia' of our family," Hashmi laughs. "It was a tough time when we lost her to Alzheimer's in 2013."

Film sets

When Hashmi flies for the shoot of Raja Natwarlal amidst Ayaan's chemo sessions in Canada, he tries to focus all his pain into the scenes. That was his way out.

Recalling those times, Hashmi says, "Every actor switches on and off. There is so much going on in a film set. There is so much chaos there, adding to the one in your head. I was initially very reluctant to get back on the set. But when I gained the momentum of work, I realised I could be someone else, let go off the baggage even if it is for a few minutes.

After writing around 200 pages on your life and the many demons you have had to fight, the small beautiful moments that make it worth living, friendships and love, one is bound to have a favourite part. "I think the final chapter was a good part. That chapter took a lot of time to write, because I had to figure out how it changed me. I am still figuring out," he says.

Hashmi is never considered your run-on-the-mill, conventional actor. "There is lack of variety in the heads sometimes. Amidst many negative comments, I realise there is the problem of sensibility too. I never overplayed my part. I was not dramatic and maybe that doesn't feed the appetite of a certain segment who wants loud movies. I think I have got my due from the audience. There is always a higher place to reach."

Well, for all those who have written off Hashmi, The Kiss of Life would be a revelation. Bhatt Sahab's Emmi, Parveen's dear Emraan and Ayaan's superpapa might just win you over not with great literature but his penchant for penning his heart on paper.

(Courtesy of Mail Today.)