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When Karan Johar’s My Name is Khan opens tomorrow, audiences worldwide will also be treated to the first look of Rakesh Roshan’s love saga Kites.

The film, directed by Anurag Basu, has the most-awaited contemporary screen pair – Bollywood’s Hrithik Roshan wooing Mexican beauty Barbara Mori. But it is a film that Hrithik almost never made. Years of strenuous dancing and doing breath-taking action for films like Krrish, Dhoom 2 and Jodhaa Akbar, that got the superstar every award worth its metal, also left Hrithik with excruciating knee pain. And just before he was to start work on his home production, the actor found himself on crutches!

He hadn’t okayed a single script after Jodhaa Akbar, said Hrithik. He was sitting free with a bad knee which had crippled him for about six months. But the script of Kites got my adrenaline going. He was in no condition to accept this film. And he was travelling around the world to find a solution to his knee problem. Finland, Singapore, LA, New York and China, he went for alternative therapies, medicines and physiotherapy, but nothing worked.

Two weeks before shooting began for Kites, Hrithik went to Santa Fe. He couldn’t even bend his knee because the cartilage was so badly damaged. So he told Anurag Basu and Rakesh Roshan that he wanted to pull out. He told them that there are two actors who speak English well and would fit into this character, and they are friends. He offered to assist and be involved in the creative side. But Anurag Basu and his dad were adamant. They said they would use duplicates in scenes where he was required to run. He was broken, because he was an athlete, a superhero, and to think of using duplicates just broke his spirit, continued Hrithik.

Then a miracle happened. On the first day of the shoot, Hrithik’s pain came down by 50 per cent; after the first week it was down to 10 per cent. Then it was gone. He thought all the things he did to heal his knee had converged together. Or he wondered his prayers had been answered. That’s when he heard that Santa Fe is surrounded by magnetic mountains and people from over the world come there to get healed. It was destiny that he chose Santa Fe to begin Kites.

His pain was gone, but Hrithik’s woes continued. When he realised that he had to bare his torso in the film, he panicked. Because of his knee, he hadn’t been doing cardio and had gained weight so the actor famous for his ripped body. And if he was to appear bare-chested, my audience would expect nothing but perfection from him. So, he devised new ways to shed the fat. Not being able to run, jump or skip, he used to just pick up a five pound dumbbell and do arm curves for 45 minutes. That became his cardio workout. He used to try and keep his heart rate up as much as he could. At times he used to just spin his hands like a windmill for half hour. Ab workouts were not a problem. And there was his diet. Living on egg whites, almonds and peanuts worked.

Relieved that he could get the actor he most wanted in Kites, Rakesh Roshan said that he kept giving Hrithik confidence and he was sure things would work out for the better. During Krrish, Hrithik’s knee had given problems but he came out of it. He said that he was praying for that miracle this time, too. But, honestly, he was mentally prepared to just pack up the entire schedule and return home if things didn’t work out.

Find out all about Kites & also know the exciting details of the movie.

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