A couple of years ago, in an offbeat surrealistic art offering suffused with the sensuality of its heroine and the magical hues of a maestro, his presence gave an added dimension to the picture perfect frames. Who's that boy…we had all wondered when painter-director, M. F. Husain's colour-filled Meenaxi-A Tale Of Three Cities lit up the big screens in darkened theatres.

Sadly, audience memory being so startlingly short and foolishly fickle, the 'boy' seemed to vanish into cinematic oblivion when the movie became part of film history. Months passed without his reappearance in the masala entertainers. Earlier this year though, he resurfaced with a bang as part of a gang of ex-collegians in the patriotic blockbuster, Rang De Basanti. Silent and intense, driven to action by reel life circumstances, this time too his alter ego made an impact.

Interestingly, around the time the 'I am proud to be Indian' flick had hit the marquee, I chanced upon some of his utterances in a local daily. Donning the role - perhaps unconsciously - of the voice of Generation Next, actor, Kunal Kapoor, articulated the dreams and desires, the stresses and strains that drive the youth of today. "There are words synonymous with every generation. Bhagat Singh and company had words like sarfarosh and inquilab associated with them. I am afraid we will have words like prosaic, suicide and depression associated with us."

Soon after his second flick's success, his well-honed physique adorned advertisements of the spring summer 2006 collection of Indian Terrain - titled 'The New Indian' (what else?) - and it became clear that Kapoor was here to stay. "I have been around doing my own thing. Had I ever gone away?" the 31-year-old quizzes in return, when I call him up to fix a coffee date. Although he does admit that he is often mistaken for a Delhiite as his frame and name hint at north Indian origins (his mother, Kanan's family hails from Rawalpindi).