Harman Baweja becomes a traceur

By: Subhash K. Jha, IndiaFM
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Watch out. Bollywood is turning super-athletic. Not only are we being prepared for a series of sport-centric films like Shimit Amin's Chak De (hockey), Vivek Agnihotri's Goal (football) and Nisha Chainani's Mumbai Marathon, our heroes are constantly searching out new adventure-sports for Hindi films.

In Dhoom 2 we had Hrithik practising water and ice sports that Indian audiences had never seen. In Anubhav Sinha's forthcoming Cash Riteish Deshmukh does Street Luge which is actually about lying down on a skateboard and chasing cars.

It looks like Akshay Kumar, Hrithik Roshan and all other super-athletes of Bollywood have stiff competition.

By practicing the bracing outdoor sports called Parkour Harman Baweja has just become Indian cinema's first certifiable Traceur.

Explains Harman, "Parkour is actually urban free-running. What it requires you to do is run across streets, building precipices, skyscrapers in one linear movement without breaking the momentum and without being mindful of the hurdles. That's precisely what I've done in Love Story 2050."

Apparently Harman was severely bruised and battered in doing the unprecedented. "It wasn't easy. But nothing challenging is easy. And I love challenges. Our audiences are bored of watching the same supposedly heart-in-the-mouth stunts. They want to see new stunts. They got it in Dhoom and Krissh. Hopefully what I've done in Love Story 2050 will also be a new experience. Jumping from skyscrapers is passe. Jumping over them is the new high," Harman ends tongue-in-cheek.