On the way to his suburban Mumbai office, Karan Johar’s gaze stares out of a huge billboard. No, he is not advertising his chat show Koffee with Karan which is currently airing its second mega eyeball season on Star World; he is endorsing a computer. Startling, or good strategy? After all, the film producer-director’s baton does hold sway over a wide-ranging audience.

Karan Johar has directed his first ad film for a cellphone company, bought a stake in media group NDTV, helms the family export and film distribution business, is producing a feature film, structuring an animation one and currently researching his new film.

“Conjecture is that it’s about a terrorist,” he says of the last. “It is not. It’s not really a political film although for the first time I am researching in New York and Los Angeles. I went with one story and returned with another. I can’t talk about it. The idea (fingers knead the air) is still malleable and ductile,” says Karan, scheduled to leave for the Big Apple that evening.

“Mumbai has a great ability to never let you be at peace. I can’t be creative here. So when I am writing, ideating or structuring a film I will be in Goa or abroad,” says the director who writes in longhand, scribbling his thoughts with a ballpoint pen on a Scholar pad. “I don’t work in drafts. My screenplay is the first and last draft.”

Right now, he is behind a fairly tidy desk in an unpretentious cluttered cabin. Amidst the trophies and posters, there is a picture plate of Karan with his father Yash Johar, a handicrafts exporter who set up Dharma Productions in 1976 — which the son now helms since his father’s death in 2004.

Karan’s Sindhi-Punjabi gene pool saw the latter triumph as business sense buckled before creative impulse. “I have zero business acumen. I don’t know how to stick to a budget; it’s clearly visible in my productions,” he says humourously.

“Instead, I was given this toy called cinema,” he continues, reaching for a jar of humble glucose biscuits. His film alma mater was the sets of Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge, directed by his friend Aditya Chopra, in which Karan acted and assisted. Then Dharma Productions became his toyshop.

A single child, Karan grew up in south Mumbai believing in loyal friendships. Comfort lay in the filial and the familiar. His parents indulged him, giving him the “sun, moon and earth,” but teaching him that values mattered. “I never smoked, did drugs or was delinquent.”

When his doting father died, the loss was heavier for not having a sibling to share it with. “Mom is also an only child so there is a high emotional dependency. I know my mum would have wished for another child, a daughter,” says Karan, who has convinced at least one pair of friends to not stay a one-offspring family.

‘It is all about loving one’s family,’ a line in a gangster flick that amused the country which knew its reference was to the genre of lengthily titled films that Karan was associated with. In 1998, 25-year-old Karan debuted as director with the blockbuster Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (a story about a widower who gets a second chance at romance). “No one knows what they are doing in their first film but you have to know more than your actors. From the first day, the lead stars treated me with respect and the rest followed suit.”

Karan’s compact frame is dressed like an Archies character, in a red Tee shirt over a blue striped shirt, and trainers. His surprisingly youthful face would blend in a college caper but he is less Archie, more fat boy turned slim.

At his broadest, young Karan measured 48 inches. “I have clothes for every waistline, but now my waist hovers between 33 and 38 inches. It is still a war,” he says. For any child, it is bothersome to be called a fatty. “But you are,” his dad told him. “Why be upset about it? I can see it even if your mother can’t,” Karan recounts. “My mother always bought me clothes a size smaller,” he recalls with a grin.

Not surprising then that when a glossy wanted to do a fashion feature with him in New York, he took it as an achievement. “It was like winning an Olympic gold. And the magazine thought I was doing them a favour,” he chuckles.

But, he says, fat kids are essentially happy. “Chocolate cake makes up for jeans that don’t fit. I had a healthy, pun intended, childhood.”

After Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, Karan scripted and produced Kal Ho Naa Ho, and then just as everyone was chortling away at the string of glossy family value dramas, came the great betrayal. When KANK (Kabhie Alvida Naa Kehna) opened last year, it was as if Johar’s film was the bludgeon that finally did the institution of marriage in. Good guys finished last, fathers-in-law encouraged their bahus to walk out of a marriage, extra-marital sex... even his mother was worried. “Those who came to see a K-Jo film got slapped in the face. Those who reject KANK are in deep denial about their personal lives, they are uncomfortable with reality. I have judged them for being judgmental.”

Looking back on a film that is still second skin to him, he is unapologetic about the story. The film was based on real life people. “Why would a woman leave a loving husband? Why means what? Just because the husband does not beat his wife it does not mean the marriage is perfect. For some people, an angry, cynical, crippled man is a turn on. Why did Maya (Rani Mukherji) marry — she made a mistake. That is the issue. One mistake triggers others.”

He, however, rues playing safe while attempting something new. The film should have been shorter and more intimate, without songs. “It was an opulent indulgence. I should have waited a couple of years to make it. But the film will breathe in retrospect. It already has a cult following.”

His sense of adventure with films does not stretch to working associates. “I work with friends. I am a comfort freak.”

It helps of course that many of his friends are at their career highmast, but Karan’s own star status makes it more than an equal partnership. All sides believe in paying their dues. In Koffee all his actor guests want a role in his next film and there is hardly an episode where Karan does not mention the Yash Chopra family.

Not much may be known about his new film but the one given is SRK (Shah Rukh Khan), whom Karan continues to style. “Apart from some directors who may be overawed by my presence, I still do his clothes. It’s a creative release for me. I wanted to be a fashion designer, after journalist and film director. Last was business. Now I am doing all four.”

Besides, it gives Karan an excuse to shop. “People go to museums. I go to malls. I need therapy,” says the shopaholic who sometimes forgets what he buys. “I just need to own it,” he says.

A self-confessed chatterbox and a fence-sitter, both qualities have paid off handsomely. “I thought I talk so much in real life, it would be fun to get paid for it.” That’s how he took the concept of Koffee to another friend, Sameer Nair. When Nair defected from Star to NDTV, K-Jo signed an equity deal with NDTV, for whom Dharma Productions will produce content.

As for handling star egos, co-star wars and reported tensions, he often pretends ignorance. “You don’t know and you never take sides,” he says firmly. “I worked with the biggest stars but if any of them did not get along on my sets they are wonderful to each other.” Tossed a rapid fire round — AB or SRK? — he fields it with a “You don’t choose between legends.”

He holds on to his manners when I refer to the constant conjecture about his sexual orientation. With a dismissive shrug, he says: “I believe it is no one’s business.” I have not been shown the door and there is no offended denial, but he is on guard for the next question.

So who is his dream date? “My mother, I hardly get to see her,” is his ready answer.

As for the face on the billboard, his celebrity status amuses him. “When people are talking about K-Jo, I feel they are talking about somebody else. I am amused and surprised. But if they don’t recognise me, I think how dare it not happen? I am left surprised by my own reaction.”