Mumbai:

Indian cinema’s enduring star continues to shine, with greasepaint or without, behind the camera or in front and now as author. At 83, the indomitable Dev Anand is yet again Romancing With Life, an autobiography he prom-ises will “feature little kno-wn secrets” through his six decades in showbiz.

Still retaining his romantic charm, attired in his trademark scarf over a jacket — and utterly in love with himself — Anand said, “My book, an autobiography in fact, is being released on my birthday on September 26, by no less than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.”

Incidentally, it’s his birthday as well. “He will celebrate me and I will celebrate him,” Anand said.

“It has a lot of reading material with selected pictures and a CD containing a selection of my favourite songs from my films,” he said about his book, a hardcover (495 pages) being pu-blished by Penguin Books.

“Romance is taking life as it comes, it is beautiful. But that does not mean you are sleeping with women all the time. A good book, a good poem, a beautiful girl, making a movie, that’s romance for me,” said the man who introduced women like Zeenat Aman and Tina Munim to Bollywood.

Elaborating on the thrill of penning his autobiography, Anand said, “I first star-ted to write during a trip to the US three years ago, but I put it on hold till my publishers urged me to finish it. Yes, the book took my time. It’s a true and honest effort. It will feature little known secrets of my life, even unknown to my family.”

After Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Banglore, Anand will take the book to the Frankfurt Book Fair and thereafter to Stockholm, London, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta and Canada. “I have also been invited by the British parliament... Invitations are also there for me to visit Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and China...” Anand said.

Asked where he gets all the energy from at his age, he said, “I never feel old as I have retained all the elements of youth. My work gives me all the energy and I am excited about all the things I do. I have gained a lot from life and have no regrets. I’m excited all the time about the things I do. So I feel young.”

“And what compensates me for my youth is my wisdom, my experience, whatever I have gained from life so far. I compensate my age with my wisdom and my experience and I can go on for a 100 years,” the vegetarian and teetotaller actor signed off.