Five bodyguards, though not in the best of shape, keep an eye on the door to a room that has been turned into an impromptu conference hall. Inside, a curly haired woman is trawling the net, probably in search of prospective brides. A few television bigwigs hover around. And, in their midst, sits Rahul Mahajan, looking quite like a good boy.

In his lifetime, BJP leader Pramod Mahajan didn’t have many reasons to do cartwheels in the air when it came to his son, Rahul. Strangely, three years after the senior Mahajan was felled, allegedly by his own brother, the son has gained a fan following. This fall, he will star in an NDTV Imagine reality show called Rahul Dulhaniya Le Jayega, where 16 women will vie for the hand of the 34-year-old multi-millionaire.

His anatomy underlines his restiveness. Throughout the interview, his legs keep doing a jig while he utters words in a soft sing-song voice which you have to sometimes strain to hear. But Rahul, who was hospitalised and arrested in a case related to drug abuse soon after his father’s death, believes that this is his season.

“I have gone through hell, unlike normal people. But I have come back like the proverbial phoenix rising from the ashes. It takes a lot of courage to enter and exit through such tough times in your life. I have seen the worst,” says Rahul, dressed in a green striped shirt and black jeans.

You can believe that. Right from the early years, Rahul was a bit of an enfant terrible, flitting from one field to another. He tried his hand at film production and sought to produce a show for Doordarshan. When Rahul evinced an interest in flying, his powerful father got him into an expensive flying institute, first in Indore and then in Texas.

As a child his father got him a toy plane to play with, which, he says, sparked his interest in flying. He joined Jet Airways, and with his first salary of Rs 50,000, recalls getting his parents a “big” television set. “Nobody in the family was a pilot. To carry 300 passengers safely is not an easy job,” he says proudly.

The job that’s now on his mind, however, is the new TV show — and the fact that he stars in it. “Today I am what I am in spite of everybody else and the naysayers. I am in demand and in command. It is not as if somebody called up somebody and fixed up things for me. There has been no political influence, no pull, no money.”

And that’s a big deal for his father was the one who once called all the shots. “After dad’s death, I am my own Arjuna, my own Krishna. I have made something of my life that I could never do despite having a powerful person like Pramod Mahajan as my father.”

The Mahabharata is Rahul’s Bible — and he keeps referring to the epic to make a point. “It’s the only thing I read. I hate to read newspapers in the morning as they carry so much bad news. I like to start my day fresh with the National Geographic channel, or some comedy time,” he says.

Rahul should be used to bad news — and a bad press — by now. In 2006, when he was found unconscious with his father’s secretary who died of an accidental drug overdose, the press and the police had a field day. Rahul was also later jailed for possessing and consuming drugs. “I have seen the extremes in life. In three months in 2006 I went from the Tihar Jail to living in the Burj Al Arab,” he says, referring to one of the most luxurious hotels in Dubai.

Soon, he was in the eye of another storm when he and his wife, Shweta, filed for a divorce amidst allegations of wife-battering. Rahul doesn’t want to talk about his former wife, but finds solace in his favourite epic. “In the Mahabharata, Krishna says ‘Samay sabse balwan’ (Time is the strongest of all). The past is past; I cannot do anything about it. Can I bring back my father? Can I change the destiny of my country?”

His father is never out of the conversation for long. “We were a happy family. Dad took us out for dinner at least thrice a month and one big vacation was mandatory for us. We had a good time. My father often spoke about his modest upbringing and that his school teacher father could not afford the kind of luxuries that I was getting. He said that once in a restaurant there was this rich man and his son ordering food. When the rich man ordered a simple dish, the son wondered aloud why his father was doing so. ‘My father is not as rich as yours,’ was the reply.”

But now he believes that he has finally stepped out of his father’s larger-than-life shadow. “I have got my own identity. As Pramod Mahajan’s son people will only give you one chance,” he says, and recalls how he was mobbed after he appeared on another reality show called Bigg Boss. “It was 2 am and at the Delhi airport fans waved out to me and wanted to shake hands with me. They were cheering for me. I couldn’t believe it. I thought at that moment how God restores the balance in life. He takes away something and then gives you back something else.”

Rahul stresses that he was always close to his father. “He used to say that when father and son have the same shoe size, they become friends. Our sizes were the same at some point of time,” he says. His mother, he adds, is a “simple” woman. “She believes I will make the right choice by selecting the right bride from among the contestants,” he adds.

Rahul brushes aside allegations that the TV reality wedding shows are a scam. In August, actress Rakhi Sawant chose her would-be groom amidst much fanfare on television, and announced soon thereafter that they were not suited for each other. “Look, if I wanted media attention, I would have got it anyway. The media didn’t spare me when my father died or later during my Tihar Jail experience or during my marriage with Shweta,” says Rahul.

His broken marriage, however, hasn’t given Rahul cold feet about his impending nuptials. “I read this good sentence somewhere that marriage is about having a witness to your life. There is this one person who knows everything about you so that your life doesn’t go unnoticed. I believe, of course, that you should renew your marriage vows every year and that the person you marry should be your friend.”

Rahul believes that he has it in him to make a marriage work. “I know that I might not be the best husband, but I will make a great father. I have this intense maternal feeling though I am a man. My heart can be like a mother’s towards a kid.”

There was a time when many thought that Rahul would follow in his father’s footsteps and join politics. “There was no need, space or hope” for that, he says, when his father was alive. Now he wants “to stabilise first before thinking of politics.”

He has other things to think about. According to recent reports from Mumbai, Rahul Mahajan has been seeking to contact the dead. Not at all, he now replies. All that he is doing is trying to get in touch with aliens or other intelligent life forms. “People from other galaxies might be transmitting messages and we were thinking of putting up an advanced dish through the organisation called SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) to receive those signals.”

The ETs can wait, though. First Rahul has to find a bride.