An exclusive conversation with Purab and sneak peek at Apoorva Lakhia’s Hide & Seek

Purab Kohli is one of the most likeable stars of his generation but is also the most underrated and untapped. Read on……..Not any more! Thanks to last year’s mammoth hit Rock On, Purab is the comeback kid with a vengeance. Such is the skill he has developed over the years plying his trade, Read More">he pulledRead More

Purab Kohli is one of the most likeable stars of his generation but is also the most underrated and untapped. Read on........Not any more! Thanks to last year's mammoth hit Rock On, Purab is the comeback kid with a vengeance. Such is the skill he has developed over the years plying his trade, he pulled it off. Girls adore him and the guys admire him. His female fans are known to tear his shirt apart. So tagging him 'sexy' would be an understatement. But we've no doubt that he's also pinned up on the walls of thousands of bedrooms around the world but the less said about that, the better. Like his films, Purab too is different, in many ways. He loves touring cities where he is filming, he loves photography, goes for long walks and loves to munch on anything and everything he has never tried before. A bit of booze could do wonders too. But that's about it. He sinks his teeth into his role the next minute. He threw himself into the cinematic underground and slowly, slowly proved himself to be one of the most adventurous and genuinely bohemian actors of his generation, both as a nominee and a headliner of one of the biggest money spinners in Indian cinema. In his latest venture about to hit the theatres early next year, he plays a game called Hide & Seek, a psycho thriller produced by Apoorva Lakhia and directed by debutant Shawn Aranha. A film shot entirely in the mega city Ahmedabad. UK's Harrow Observer columnist and Bollywood Hungama's London correspondent talks to the great hope of modern Bollywood, Purab Kohli, in this exclusive extended interview which had its moments of thrill, games and khakhra's.

Thrill for thrillers:
"Well, firstly, you can't say that this is an Abbas Mustan type of cinema. No. If you really ask me, I don't think that any film of this kind has been attempted in Indian cinema before. There was a film of such nature which came out a few years ago titled Sshhh...Koi Hai. It was a nice film and it had an interesting murder mystery attached to it. Hide & Seek is a film that you can slip into that kind of a genre. I'm thrilled to be a part of a thriller like this one."

Lucky English titles: “English titles have been somewhat lucky for me. They have been. My Brother Nikhil got so much critical acclaim, Read More">then came Rock On which was the biggest hit last year and now comes Hide & Seek. English titles do get me noticed for sure (laughs). But this is one title which everybodyRead More

Lucky English titles:
"English titles have been somewhat lucky for me. They have been. My Brother Nikhil got so much critical acclaim, then came Rock On which was the biggest hit last year and now comes Hide & Seek. English titles do get me noticed for sure (laughs). But this is one title which everybody will understand. It's so synonymous to even my lift-man and my driver, etc."

Touring Ahmedabad:
"I was in the mega city for thirty days. I like to go and tour the city I'm shooting in. So everyone found really strange that I went for a heritage walk in the older parts of Ahmedabad. I tried out all the restaurants that people suggested. One of the fresh days I had was when I visited the Calico museum. This gave me an overview of the artisans, especially where the textiles is concerned. It still exists. Some of the embroidery, weaving which comes out of Gujarat is mind blowing. Gujarat is known more than just the design schools and the IIM. It is one of the Art centres of India. Even Rajasthan for that matter. The three days I got off, I also visited the Gandhi Ashram."

Naughty Apoorva Lakhia:
"On the sets of Hide & Seek, Apu was a naughty boy that your parents and the principal tells you to stay away from. Whenever he came on the sets, he would order food from the best places of Ahmedabad with budget going all over the place. He would make sure that all the things that aren't suppose to be on the sets were there. Laxmi the co-producer would be the dean. She would come and Apu would say, "Please do not take my actors away" (laughs). He would defend us. He was the fun element on the production side. Apoorva hails from Ahmedabad and he used to say this - "Dude, you're going to have a blast out here because I am the King of Ahmedabad."

Read More">Sexy Purab: “I don’t know whether I am sexy. I play a sweet little boy and the girls like him. He is terribly in love with one of the characters in the film. I play Om Jaiswal in the film and is a lover boy all the way. There is no place for being sexyRead More

Sexy Purab:
"I don't know whether I am sexy. I play a sweet little boy and the girls like him. He is terribly in love with one of the characters in the film. I play Om Jaiswal in the film and is a lover boy all the way. There is no place for being sexy here (laughs)."

Ayaaz Khan:
"I've known Ayaaz for a while now. He has done some small roles here and there but this is going to be his first big film. I don't think Ayaaz is exposed to the audiences that much. He has done a lot of commercials and modelling. We both have common school friends and thus used to bump into each other at school parties and so on. I've told him to act more because I know that he is a good actor. Today, he is very excited about his first big film."

Mrinalini Sharma:
"I haven't worked with Mrinalini face to face but we did a film together called Awarapan. I played a very small part in it. Awarapan was a guy film all the way and she was the only girl around. She was one of the guys off the sets and we all used to go to her room to play video games. We all used to call her 'minty'. Now that name has been carried forward on the sets of Hide & Seek too (laughs)."

Amruta Patki:
"I had no idea who Amruta Patki was till I met her on the sets. She is a debutant. I was informed that she was Femina Miss India 2006. She has really come out well and in fact, she has got a lot of action sequences in the film too."

Arjan Bajwa:
"What can one say about Arjan Bajwa? He is a phenomenal actor. He is too good for words and haven't still got the credit which he is still looking for. In Fashion, he was very good."

Samir Kocchar:
"I don't think people really look at him as an actor because he is so famous for his IPL hosting. Every time I've seen Samir in films, I've noticed that he is one of the finest actors we have today. He is talented, confident and I had many scenes with him in Hide & Seek as he plays my elder brother in the film. If there is one good actor working with you, it helps you to work better too. I took a lot of good, better, best from him."

Read More">Hide & Seek: “Hide & Seek is a difficult murder mystery. It’s a young film with a lot of youthfulness. It’s not a teenage story though. The film starts off from a party when the six friends are shown as seventeen year olds. They all are family friends and things go terribly wrong between them.Read More

Hide & Seek:
"Hide & Seek is a difficult murder mystery. It's a young film with a lot of youthfulness. It's not a teenage story though. The film starts off from a party when the six friends are shown as seventeen year olds. They all are family friends and things go terribly wrong between them. Then after twelve years, the six of them are brought back together to play the same game they played at that party - Hide & Seek. There are two types of suspense in this film - What happened at that party? and Who is that someone who's trying to get rid of them? The film is not very long. It's a two hour film and I've seen the first cut of it already. After seeing it, I didn't expect it to be so spooky. It was very exciting and made me laugh at myself."

Shawn Aranha - the director:
"Shawn is making his directorial debut with Hide & Seek. He has been Apoorva Lakhia's assistant for a few years. He is quite a loved boy in the industry it seems. I've been meeting many of my friends from the industry and have heard quite a lot about Shawn. They all were surprised to know that Shawn is making his launch with this film. He is like Mohit Suri. He started assisting from a very young age of sixteen years. He is now thirty and has directed his first film. Shawn is completely involved and enthusiastic about what he does."

Claustrophobic technique:
"The name claustrophobic because all the characters are brought in together and trapped inside one closed down mall. The style of the shoot was more constrained and tight. So on the psychological aspect, the word does work and then after you see the film you finally get to know why Shawn has used such kind of a word to describe the technique of his film. The six characters are all trapped and can't get out and are thus forced to play a game called Hide & Seek which is something that they don't want to necessarily do as they don't want to be next to each other. The technique will grip you for sure."