by Subhash K Jha

He has got to be the busiest actor in the world. John Abraham has recovered from his recent illness...and how!

"If taking it easy means the kind of routine that I'm following then yeah, I'm taking it easy," he chuckles all the way from London.

Right now he's in London promoting his next release Taxi 9211. He returns to Mumbai on Thursday and leaves for Sri Lanka ("One of my favourite spots after Water") the same day to launch a Yamaha mo'bike. "Then right after that I'm in Dubai for the promotion of 9211. Then I return to India and tour major cities. Finally I'm in Dubai for the Zee awards. That's when I'll get a chance to be home again."

Right now John's schedule looks crazy. For Valentine's Day he had to give Bipasha Basu's company the miss. "I'm here in London. And she was busy shooting in Mumbai. This was the first Valentine when we weren't together. But she's a truly understanding girl. No issues."

The issue on hand is Taxi 9211 . "You know when I saw the film I was blown. It's just 1 hour and 55 minutes long. And it's unlike anything I've done before. It's about two guys who are basically losers, and their adventure together. I think it's a film I'm very confident about. The director Milan Luthria belongs to the Mahesh Bhatt school of filmmaking. And Mr Bhatt has always been a favourite. Nana Patekar and I are such different individuals and actors...We had a blast shooting together."

There're two new happenings in John's life. "I've started my own website . In just fifteen days there have been 1.5 million hits. It's unbelievable. Yeah , I guess for a guy who came from the outside I've come a long way. There're three kinds of actors—those that are industry-made, those that are media-made and those that are audience-made.

I feel I belong to the last category. It's the love of my audience that's kept me going in spite of some of my films not doing well. Except Nikhil Advani's Salaam-e-Ishq and Ravi Chopra's Babul I really don't have too many big-banner films on hand. I've a lot of hard work to do. I feel I've a lot of limitations. And I need to keep working hard to overcome those limitations."

The other big happening in John's life is a cell-phone game called Velocity which he has developed personally in collaboration with his career mangers Matrix and a company called Small Devices. "It's something that I thought of. Sure beats the image that model-turned-actors have of not being brainy, huh? And now the game is ready. We've sent it out on a trial basis to consumers. And the response has been very encouraging. We'll launch it as soon as we zero- in on a date."

John lights up at the mention of the wondrous 'W' word. "I think Water with Deepa Mehta was a learning experience. No one believed I could carry off the dhoti and the Sanskrit shlokas. Even I find it hard to believe . I'm so proud to be part of a film like Water...and to be part of an industry which has made Rang De Basanti. I think it's one of the best films I've seen Even Zinda which did just okay at the boxoffice pushes the envelope."

He pauses to reflect on his career, and adds, "You know when I came in I was the outsider. But no less than Mr Amitabh Bachchan agreed to act with me in Aetbaar. So I guess I didn't do too badly for myself. Taxi 9211 smells good. I like what's on my plate."