On a day Mahesh Bhatt’s film Tum Mile released, it was his son Rahul who grabbed all the headlines. Everyone wanted to know the story of the man who had survived a broken home and won a battle of pure grit with morbid obesity — and how and why he came to be allegedly mixed up with a suspected Lashkar terrorist.

Friends use words like “quiet”, “reserved” and “determined” in the same breath as “party boy” and “spaced out” to describe the 25-year-old. Rahul never hid the fact that the break-up of his parents’ marriage disturbed him deeply. In a published interview, he confessed he took to binge-eating as a way to cope with the trauma of a broken home. His weight zoomed to 122 kilos, and he spent his teen years as a recluse.

From this to taking up fitness training as a profession, was a story of Rahul’s mental strength and determination. His dreams of becoming an actor spurred his commitment to weight loss. “Rahul was this pimple-faced, fat boy who wanted to be an actor.

Once he realized his weight was the biggest hurdle, he decided to do something about it,” said a friend who declined to be quoted.

As he went about losing weight, Rahul became interested in fitness and body-building. He enrolled in Kaizad Kapadia’s class and did a course in nutrition and weight-training. He also did correspondence courses with the International Sports Sciences Association and the American Council of Exercise. His got his first job at Pritish Nandy’s high-profile gym, Moksh.

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