Mumbai, May 31: Emraan Hashmi’s book on his son Ayaan’s battle and victory over cancer, “The Kiss Of Life”, will be released in Marathi and Hindi in June.
“Next month, the Hindi version and a Marathi version will be launched. So looking forward to that,” Emraan said, at the launch of the English-language book in Mumbai on Monday.
About his experiences of reliving his stress for his son’s illness while writing the book, Emraan said, “When we thought that this is going to be documented in this book, I thought it’s going to be an extremely painful journey to relive all of that once again.”
“In some ways, moments brought about nostalgia because the book is not just about the episode of cancer, it’s about retracing how I was in college, school, my grandmother, my father and everyone from the family.”
The book has been co-written by 21-year-old writer Bilal Siddiqi and Emraan had shared the first look of the book in March this year.
Popular crime writer S Hussain Zaidi who has penned books which have been adapted into films such as “Black Friday”, “Phantom”, “Shootout At Wadala”, was the one who pushed Emraan relentlessly for months to write a book on the incident so that it could make a difference into the lives of other families facing similar situations.
“I think it was very therapeutic, it’s like counseling, there are feelings, you’ve been through them, but the moment you talk about them or pen them down, it finds some kind of a closure.”
“It was fascinating, because we as a family could actually fight this disease. It takes me back to the first day, the hope with which we started off where Parveen and me held back our tears. We told ourselves we are going to make sure that nothing happens to our son. So it’s just the feeling of accomplishment which everyone in the family felt,” Emraan said.
Ayaan was diagnosed with cancer, where a tumour of the size of a season ball was formed near his kidney, in 2014 when he was three-and-half years old.
He was then treated in Canada, and has completely recovered now.
On a lighter note, on the sidelines, Emraan spoke of his ‘One bag for every film he kisses in’ deal with wife.
Emraan who has earned the nickname “serial kisser” for his on-screen kisses, says that his wife Parveen still sulks about his kisses and calms down only after Emraan gifts her a bag for every film he kisses in.
At the launch, Emraan when asked about his wife’s reaction said, “She doesn’t hit me as hard now, earlier it used to be with a bag, now it’s just with the hand. So she has kind of come down over the years.”
Does Emraan calm her down by buying her expensive jewellery? “Always buy her bags, for every kiss, for every film. She has got a cupboard full of bags, there’s one cupboard dedicated to bags,” he said.
Considering the numerous kisses he shared with Nargis Fakhri in his last release “Azhar”, did he have to actually buy that many bags? Emraan said, “As many times, but bag is only once. We’ve had a barter deal; that way I told her that I’ll be broke.
“Don’t take money for everything, take money for the film and buy a bag from it.”
Emraan started his career with numerous kissing scenes in almost all of his films such as “Murder”, “Zeher”, “Aksar”, “Aashiq Banaya Apne” and “Gangster” among others and earned the title of “serial kisser”.
When films such as “Shanghai”, where he didn’t kiss, flopped, it was reported that kisses were lucky for his films. When asked about it, he said, “Thankfully some films where I have not kissed have also flopped and some where I’ve kissed have also flopped.”
Upon being asked to write a book a love guru, he said, “I got rejected like three times, so that’s the love guru for you. I think I’d make a disastrous book… I’ll think about it, I’ll actually give it a thought.”
Emraan will next be seen in the film “Raaz Reboot”.