Model Muzamil Ibrahim has left behind the mindless violence that haunts his home state of Jammu and Kashmir. Now he belongs to the top echelon of models, comfortable with their striking looks who strut their stuff without inhibitions. The 21-year-old was in his first year of mechanical engineering in Jamia Millia Islamia University in Delhi, when one day over coffee at the college canteen he saw an ad for a screen test for the Glad Rags contest. He was one of the walk-in contestants at the Oberoi Hotel and ended up waiting in a queue with 800 other contestants.

?Finally two of us were picked. We had to face Maureen Wadia who said she was looking not only for a tall and handsome guy, but also one with a great body. I won the Manhunt contest in Mumbai in 2003,? he says. The youngest of a family of three brothers and sisters, Muzamil seems unfazed with his success. And though film offers are streaming his way, he?s decided to be patient. ?I?ve seen success at the young age of 19, so I am going to take it slowly. I am waiting for the right offer,? he says.

Muzamil?s elder brother Mudasar Sameer Ibrahim was always the more studious one in the family. Having completed his graduation in biology, Mudasar wanted to be a doctor. But fate too had similar designs for him as his younger brother. The 25-year-old has recently stepped into the world of modelling. ?Even as a child I had this inclination to become an actor. But because of my studies I could not enter the world of glamour,? he says. But studies are not excluded from the picture. Mudasar is doing his Masters in English literature from Annamalai University through correspondence. The brothers now share an apartment in Mumbai and can be always spotted together at parties and get-togethers.

Muzamil:

Mudasar was a very studious guy, mostly engrossed in studies. I was the sporty and the athletic one in the family. We used to study in the same school in Kashmir ? a British school called Tyndale Biscoe. My father was away most of the time. He was an army contractor who had to be out at the sites. So Mudasar used to stand in for him and take care of me and my elder sister Nafisa.

We weren?t friendly at all. Mudasar was called ?Johnny? by friends and family. I used to call him the same. One day he told me to address him as ?bhaiyya? and use ?aap? instead if ?tum?. I was scared of him as he?d spank me whenever I ended up breaking windows while playing cricket. The neighbourhood back home in Rajbagh, Srinagar, was fed up with my sixers.

I remember that Mudasar would never back me up during school fights. He would justify himself saying, ?I know who?s to blame?. I might have been a naughty boy, but I fared well in academics and held positions in school such as school captain, so the family was never worried about my studies as such. Once before the Class XII Boards, I was being troubled by a classmate who wanted to pick a fight, but knowing that I had to concentrate on the upcoming exams I fought back the urge to get into a squabble. I told Mudasar about it and never worried about it. He took care of everything.

Two years ago I came to Mumbai. Mudasar was already staying here. I stayed with friends initially but then moved in with him. Our relationship has seen a sea change. While earlier I could never confide in him, now I pour out all my troubles to him without thinking twice.

Everybody needs to be told what they are. My brother is the person in my life who does that. I had not seen this side of life coming from where I did. All of a sudden I found myself in the middle of a rat race, where one has be at the top. Mudasar was my support because I couldn?t tell my mother and sister without making them unnecessarily anxious.

My brother is the best cook in the world. But only when I nag him for a month, does he deign to enter the kitchen. Once he made a keema dish and till today, I haven?t tasted anything half as good.

Mudasar:

Muzamil is the youngest in the family and I treated him so when we were children. I played the role of an elder brother ? strict and authoritarian. But I have funny memories of us. Like when Muzamil was a four-year-old, he was not well. He had a friend in the neighbourhood, a little girl, who also happened to be his classmate. She had come to visit him. We found out that she had chocolates in her bag.

My sister Nafisa and I concocted a tale telling her that Muzamil was ill because he had been haunted by a spirit and only chocolates could help drive it out. She was so upset that she parted with her chocolates immediately and Nafisa and I had a ball of a time hogging them. Of course, we did let Muzamil have a 5-star bar.

When I was a 12, we had gone to Gulmarg, a picnic spot in Jammu. We used to enjoy horse rides there. Now somehow I kept riding ahead of Muzamil. He was not very happy about it. After some time he started crying and wanted to know how I was getting ahead of him. It turned out he was on a mule and I was riding a horse.

Muzamil was impulsive right from childhood, he would come to conclusions immediately and he also had a short temper. Some things never change. He is still the same. But I have to say this of him ? he would always listen to any advice I doled out. At that point we had a communication gap. But there were never any girlfriend secrets that he would have to hide from me. Because such things just do not happen in Kashmir.

Our childhood was interspersed with firings in the local market and grenade throwing. Muzamil would love exaggerating about them. He used to return home and talk about seeing blood-clogged drains. We used to stay at home and play. For everything was shut including the swimming pool. The fact that we returned home unharmed from school was a big deal. In a sense, we wanted to get away from it all, so we came to Delhi for further studies.

Since the time we have started staying together, we have made up for the aloofness of our early years. Now Muzamil is my best pal.