Milind Soman talks about his life on the run, Ankita Konwar and more!

The last time we saw Milind Soman was at Marine Drive four years ago on a Sunday morning His running shorts and tee clinging to his body he sprinted past onlookers some of them sizing him up This writer had just begun to actively use her feet It was the only time Soman and she had something in commonWhen we meet the former model actor and now marathoner at his Santa Cruz East office a lot has changed At 32 we can barely runmdashthe excuse is our collapsing body Fifty fouryearold Soman is still hanging in there like the solid branch of an ageing tree There is reason to be in awe But we have decided we wont fawn Fresh from reading his memoir Made In India Penguin Random House where he writes no interview with a female journalist has ever begun without her first saying something complimentary about my looks we are determined to keep things differentAnd yet when Soman shows up 25 minutes after the scheduled 2 pm time in distressed jeans and a jacket with popped collar requesting another 10 minutes we thawmdashgenerously obliging When he is back we say nothing about his looks and congratulate him on the book which he has cowritten with Roopa PaiWith mother Usha 2019Publishing house Penguin had approached Soman years ago to write his story But he recalls dragging his feet I had no struggle to speak of Or at least the kind that would have shaped my life or merited a book What would I talk about It was Raga Olga Dsilva friend and cofounder of his firm Speaking Mindsmdashwhich provides a range of motivational speakers to corporate clientsmdashwho convinced him to write Pai came on board because Soman who says he is fairly new to social media chanced upon her post on his Facebook timeline I read stories she had written about sportspersons who were representing India at the Olympics They were very short but the essence of their personalities was apparent I was very inspired I later went to her page and read all her stories he says At the time Soman didnt know that Pai was a published author The memoir is the result of lengthy interviews between the twoSoman speaks of a childhood spent in London and later Bombay the indulgences that come with modelling and a new lease of life as a marathoner The book has moments of selfintrospection as most memoirs are wont to Soman who seems like to like giving credit where due says that Pai did a good job at vocalising his thoughts It sounds like meWith Madhu Sapre 2006Its most likely that he has excluded important chapters from his life just because I couldnt remember them I live in the moment My wife Ankita Konwar tells me that I have a bad memory all wives say that he says plainly But yes I dont remember things that I did yesterday or even last week So for me to think what I 20 years ago wasnt exciting The highest point of my life so far was in 1984 when I won my first national swimming championship I was 18 I think nothing has exceeded that feeling although I have done so much since Thats a bit sadSoman moved to Mumbai as an eight year old in 1973 While he felt like an outlier because he spoke with a British accent he writes glowingly of his childhoodmdashone that involved rigour and discipline He was training to be a professional swimmer and would eventually go on to represent India at the The South Asian Games But growing up in the Maharashtrian neighbourhood of Shivaji Park meant walking in the light of the rest His father an employee of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre who he calls Baba enrolled him in the local RSS shakha because he was a great believer in the benefits that would accrue to a young boy in terms of disciplined living Soman remembers it as a fun experience I talk about everything as being fun he laughs But the RSS then was all about games and exercises Discipline was also a big thingmdashthat you have to listen be obedient respect your parents and elders We also learned stick fighting and attended camps It wasnt religious dogmatic racist or negative he says admitting that he is a little surprised when he reads reports concerning the social organisation today I dont discount it I didnt study their philosophy or what their mission was For me it was a good experience And the people I was with were good peopleWith Anusha Dandekar 2003As a 21yearold his life took a dramatic turn when following a tiff with his Indian coach his name was not considered for the 1986 Asian Games Its the one thing he regrets I would have loved to represent India I think it was my fault arguing I should have been smarter Its always about how you deal with a situation I didnt deal with it correctly he saysIn between 1986mdashthe year he considered giving up professional swimmingmdashand 2009 Soman became the posterboy of Indian modelling a gay icon an actor film and television producer and successful full marathon runner Nothing however brought him more joy than the dismissal of a case in November 2009 against him and former girlfriend Madhu Sapre for the infamous Tuff shoes advertisement where the two had posed in the buff He points out in the book that the ad would have gone unnoticed had it not been for an article in this very paper on July 23 1995 which reproduced the image of the ad with an article on the controversy That was when the st really hit the fan he writes The court battle dragged on for 14 yearsWatching a selfie seeker pay the customary price do pushups 2018The modelling years may have brought Soman stardom but its also the first time that he threw caution to the wind Alcohol drugs and smoking became commonplace Its that one time when aai his mother Usha who until then had been supportive of his choice of career to his girlfriends disapproved She has always been there She is a solid backbone Its not like she ever told any of us Milind and his three sisters what to do She just led by example Also I dont listen to people even if its my mother And she respects that he says Yes she was against alcohol and tobacco all mothers are But I was at that phase of my life where I was surrounded by people who encouraged it I used to drink a lot Id come home drunk and she would be horrified But I never smoked or drank at home I didnt want to make it worse for her he says He admits to smoking 30 cigarettes a day I was that stupid yes But because of the subconscious guilt about smokingmdashhis father was a hard smokermdashhe says he never actually bought himself a single cigarette through those years I have an addictive obsessive personality but I am able to get in and out without scarring myself I try whatever there is to tryA year after the annual Mumbai Marathon launched in 2003 marked another chapter for Soman It was like going back to his childhood he says He continued doing the half marathons annually for the next five years before he took the full plunge While he completed the race in 4 hours 47 minutes and 44 seconds he collapsed a few kilometres from the finish line That was the only time I really struggled to achieve something It was because of overconfidence I had been running for five years and was cocky and arrogant I didnt allow myself to understand what it meant to run 42 km It was a great learning experienceRunning the Mumbai Marathon 2007In 2015 he competed in the Ironman Triathlon widely considered the worlds toughest oneday sporting event Participants have to complete a 386kilometre swim a 18025kilometre bicycle ride and a full marathon 422 kilometres successively and in that order in under 17 hours Two years on he completed Ultraman a threedaylong mega triathlon which he says was scarier than Ironman At 38 I had thought finishing a halfmarathon would be difficult At 52 I knew becoming an Ultraman was easy he writes in the bookMemoirs are meant to be tellall But Soman despite showing no restrain when exposing his vulnerabilities including his lovehate relationship with his father whose volatile temperament worried him refused to discuss or dwell on the relationships with his girlfriends except for Sapre which was public knowledge his first wife Mylegravene Jampanoi and Konwar I skipped it deliberately People didnt know about a lot of my girlfriends and I didnt want to suddenly bring it out and create some issues for them It happened so many years ago and they have their own lives I didnt want to call all of them up and ask Hey should I tell them our story I also felt it wasnt important to write about themHaving said that he loved the attention he has received from women A soothsayer after reading his palm had told his mother that he would be surrounded by ladies Its the truth Its not that I dont get along with men but I prefer the company of women I like being with them I have learnt a lot from the women I have been with whether my mother sisters girlfriends business partners or wives And then corrects himself WifeSoman and Ankita Konwar Konwar who he married in April 2018 is at the office when we meet him She doesnt interrupt the interview but agrees for a quick picture when asked The two met at a nightclub and for Soman it was almost love at first look I thought this girl was amazing But he didnt want to appear like a predatory Casanova a description he says is wrongly attributed to him so he took it slow They went out on a date two weeks later He jokes about how traumatic the whole wedding talk was When we met for the first time we had this chat about marriage and kids and we both agreed that it was not for us And I was like yay But a couple of years later her sister got married and she said oh It would be so nice to get married And I said excuse me It kept cropping up again Eventually I got around to it he says But its been wonderful I am really happy that we did it We do everything together and I think it has worked well for us Soman ends as we get into the elevator for another round of pictures in the outdoors The marathoner poses like he is on a ramp and taking a look at the pictures in the DSLR he admires his own face Hhow good I lookAnd we break our wow Of courseQUICK 51 His first girlfriend was called Anne They were both five and in the same class at a London kindergarten2 His favourite escapist fantasy as a child was Tarzan Lord of the Apes3 He has read at least 200 Mills amp Boon romances as a teenager4 He hasnt used shaving foam cologne sunblock or soap in over 10 years5 When the concept of Alisha Chinais Made In India indipop video was first explained to him he thought it unbelievably tackyMilind Soman on tweets about Milind SomandhaniyawaadMilind Soman is so hot that I can cook biryani on himI really hope dhaniyawaad is a girl Not that I want her to cook biryani on mesup_3Dont blame climate change Milind Soman is directly responsible for global warmingI am not Its really bad and I cant be responsible for whats badShakti_Shetty Milind Soman can actually justify sending Running late emails to his colleaguesLaughsiamdatemikeAt one point I also wanted to date Milind Soman but then I saw the amount of exercise it involvedThank godLOLrakshakI have a lot of questions about the Milind SomanAnkita wedding Like who reached the mandap first Milind or the horseFunny Funny Funny There was no horseCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates