Tiger Shroff: Burning Bright

There’s a move in kung fu called ‘The Tiger’. A direct, aggressive attack that’s believed to be one of the most effective martial arts plays. But this isn’t the method that the most gentle member of the Shroff clan would choose in a fight. In fact, he’d rather not fight at all, except to win his family’s respect back. After three films and a cultish fan following, he’s still coming to terms with his name – and the destiny that’s been chosen for him.

- Megha Shah

There’s something unnervingly surreal about Tiger Shroff. On the surface, at least. Like he might be a hologram created by a nerdy kid on a bender. It might be because his part-Gujarati, part-Turkish, part-Bengali, part- Belgian genes have lent him striking, almost gender fluid features. Or that his unusually pliable body is somehow lean and buff at once, every protuberant muscle, tendon and vein almost sculpted out of plasticine. He’s already a pretty good version of his future wax statue. It might be the fact that he has a teacher – whom he calls his master – named Grandmaster Shifuji. Like the robed, moustache-like-noodles animated character from Kung Fu Panda, except for real. Or that, in two years, he’s made a career of confounding audiences with CGI-free, stunt double-less upside-down leaps and graceful swoops and acrobatics woven into fights and dance moves borrowed from a Nineties pop music video. That he spends more time in the air than on the ground. Or that his chosen hairstyle is the un-woke mullet – the only similarity he allows himself to have with his father. And that’s where he starts getting real.

He walks into the studio in Andheri on a Sunday morning, already packed with 40 muscular background dancers. The room reeks of sweat, hormones and synthetic whey, but Shroff, who’s coming from parkour training and is wearing proof as a thick glowing layer on his skin, is seemingly oblivious to it.