Outside his door scores of wannabe actors wait patiently. Photographs of aspirants are strewn across his desk as well.

His cell phone, which has the title track from his Omkara as the ring tone, rings incessantly.

"Release time is always busy," Kumar Mangat tells you, a trifle unnecessarily.

He would know. He has produced Omkara, No Smoking and Sunday, which released last week.

As he orders for coffee, sips it, he goes back in time. "No one will believe that I began my career like the boy who just served me coffee," he says.

It all started nearly 30 years ago. In 1978.

He was only 16, a student at the Guru Gobind Singh Anandpur Saheb in Shimla. Like many youngsters, he would act in college shows. His peers felt he had the potential to become a star. They told him to try his luck in Mumbai.

Kumar mustered the courage to leave his home with Rs 300 in his pocket. He arrived in Mumbai in December that year. He remembers the date, December 21. He disembarked at the Borivali railway station in northwestern Mumbai and spent the night on the platform, planning his next step.

He successfully tracked down a family friend. Two days later they told him to pack up and leave.

"I was determined to prove myself. Going back would have been very embarrassing," he recalls.

So he hung on in Mumbai and started to look for work, determined to last.

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