At 50, I have a body of a 30-year-old: Nikhil Nanda

Strap: Here’s why the entrepreneur turned filmmaker & actor does not take his fitness for granted. Nikhil Nanda is quite a multifaceted personality. Apart from being an entrepreneur, film producer, and newbie actor, he is also a fitness buff and never takes it for granted. He says, “I am turning 50 this year but I can say that I have the energy and body of a 30-year-old.”It’s a kind of confidence that could be mistaken for arrogance, but with Nikhil it is self-awareness of having worked hard to achieve that level of fitness and discipline. “It was more like survival and that’s become a habit now,” he says.

The entrepreneur turned filmmaker’s tryst with fitness began at school. He recalls, “I was in Class 9 when I moved to Delhi and no school was ready to take me because I came from any board. I finally managed to get admission to a small school called Guru Harkrishan Public School in Delhi. I studied hard and stood second in school. The percentage got me an admission in Delhi Public School, a top school in Delhi that my brothers passed out from.”

But life at the new school was not hunky-dory. “It was a South Delhi school and I came from North Delhi, which is considered to be the suburbs. So, people made fun of me and harassed me as well. However, it took a turn for the worse when a girl took a liking to me and approached me. Other boys, who were studying in the area, saw this and took me down at the basketball court and punched me,” he recalls, continuing, “I was a thin and lanky guy then. I decided that to survive in that place, I had to fight back. So, I joined a gym in Rajouri. At the end of the year, I gained muscles and my weight increased from 55 kg to 72 kg. After that, I took the guys who had beaten me to the washroom and hit them back.”

Nikhil feels that health is the most important wealth in life. “My father worked hard to bring us up but lost a lot in terms of his health. He ensured that his kids never had any disease. Even if you have all the luxury of the world and you stay in the best cities, you can’t enjoy anything if you are not well. For me, the most important thing in life is health,” says the health enthusiast. He cites the case of the Indian billionaire, stock trader, and investor, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, who was bound to a wheelchair at the age of 58 and passed away recently at age of 62. The last words of the noted investor were that he made one bad investment -- he did not invest in health and wished he could change that.” Nikhil, who will be seen as a cop in the web series, Criminal Minds, has ensured that he does not have to worry on that account.