It was the 90s era. Bollywood had suddenly started to ride high – thanks to the “budding” KHANS. Somewhere around 1990-1991 came an unknown movie called “Dancer”. I still remember my friend insisting me to go for it inspite of my disinterest because of unknown names. But still we went to see it. Though nothing about the movie was worth boasting about, but I could feel that after this 3 hour ordeal “mera paisa vasool ho gaya tha.” But why? I had not seen Aamir-Juhi romance , nor had I seen Amitabh deliver power-packed punches. After a lot debate within me I got the answer , “arre yaar because of this new kid on the block Akshay Kumar.” He is a perfect actor material (minus acting at that time). Looks , physique , action , dance , romance – what else could you ask for? He is not chocolate faced and at the same time very masculine. Has rugged looks but not “cold ones” Further, talking about action - his only USP when he stepped into the tinsel town, he gave it a new definition altogether. We’ve all had a visual treat of flying kicks and punches of Dharmendra , Amitabh and even Govinda , but what’s really different and refreshing about Akshay is his novel use of martial arts to make his fights appear realistic (a dimension to action never explored before in hindi cinema). These on-screen histrionics not only made him a hot property among young girls but at one point of time even earned him the title of “Desi Stallone.” But as they say , “Zarra hatke zarra bachke ye hai Mumbai meri jaan.” People have had enough of his laats and ghoonsas , now they wanted to see the actor within him, and this was the time when his even the most death defying stunts failed to take his career ahead. Then followed a string of flops and before our hero could realize critics had almost written him off when Akshay took a decision which sealed everyone’s lips, to break his macho-action hero image and appeared in his first ever negative role in “Ajnabee”. It was followed by “Hera Pheri” where he got a chance to try his hand at comedy and really did quite well. After that there was no looking back. Today, if we see , we’ll find that though he has not been able to earn a position equivalent to Shah Rukh Khan , but is undoubtedly one of the finest actors of our country.