Bollywood actor Emraan Hashmi is going to enter a new phase in his life when his first child arrives early next year and he says that he is eagerly waiting for this new role.

“The baby is due in February. People say it’s a completely different dimension and I am eagerly waiting for this new change. I dont know what it is. But it’s supposedly tough being a dad so let’s see,” said Emraan on a visit to the Capital to promote his film “Tum Mile”.

The actor, who has done films like “Kalyug”, “Murder” and “Jannat”, among others, married long-time girlfriend Parveen Shahani in 2006.

What strikes the most in Tum Mile is the way in which a love story is told against the backdrop of a natural calamity. What fails to cut an edge, however, is how the calamity itself, the 26/7 deluge of Mumbai in 2005, has been depicted. The fateful day when the maximum city sank under waist-deep water, when thousands of aam Mumbaikars were stranded between hell and high water, has not been recreated to the most bone-chilling effect. But then, ‘Tum Mile’ never claimed to document the calamity. At its core, the film is a love story, and at that level it surely does work.

The film tells the story of two estranged lovers who meet again after a gap of six years amidst a natural disaster. Sanjana (Soha Ali Khan) and Akshay (Emraan Hashmi) bump into each other on a plane to Mumbai. The two share a past which neither seems to have forgotten and as the evening ticks on they find themselves stuck in the middle of a flooded Mumbai.

The narrative keeps slipping into flashbacks to create a parallel track of how the two fell in love and then fell apart.

In Cape Town, Akshay, an art student living hand to mouth, fell for a rich girl, Sanjana. The yawning gap between their social standing didn’t prevent the two from falling in love and living in together. But soon the cracks in the relationship began to appear as Sanjana foot the basic bills of the house, while an out-of-work Akshay twiddled his thumbs and grappled with his male abhimaan of being a liability on Sanjana. A separation inevitably follows. Six years later, as the two stick together to navigate a flooded city, will they rediscover their lost love?

One of Bollywood’s most bankable stars, Emraan Hashmi, says people have contantly tried to pull him down. He also believes the new film “Tum Mile” will present him in a new avatar, having mostly essayed roles with shades of grey.

“In the kind of industry I am, every creative person has a judgment to make about someone else’s performance. After doing a movie, I may think that I have come up with my best act, but others may think otherwise. You can’t help it,” shrugs Emraan, 30.

“This is something that has happened ever since I made my debut with ‘Footpath’. I went on to deliver successful films practically every year with ‘Murder’, ‘Zeher’ and ‘Aashiq Banaya Aapne’ followed by ‘Aksar’ and ‘Gangster’. Still people have tried to pull me down,” Emraan told IANS in an interview.