Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; November 19, 2018)

John Abraham has had a great year at the box-office with Abhishek Sharma’s Parmanu: The Story of Pokhran, opening in the theatres on May 25 after a legal battle with former producer-partner Prerna Aroraa and wowing the audience with its inspiring, true-life drama. This was followed by the Milap Zaveri’s vigilante action film, Satyameva Jayate, on August 15, which went on to be one of surprise hits of the year. He is currently shooting for Batla House, inspired by the real-life operation headed by then ACP Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, which he is jointly producing with director Nikkhil Advani. In a surprise move on Saturday, given how reclusive both he and his wife Priya Runchal usually are, the actor-producer hosted a party for his filmmaker-friends at his Bandra office.

Besides Nikkhil, Milap and Abhishek, John’s Kabul Express and New York director Kabir Khan was also there with his wife Mini Mathur. Also spotted was his Desi Boyz and Dishoom director, Rohit Dhawan, along with T-Series head honcho Bhushan Kumar and his RAW: Romeo Akbar Walter producer Bunty Walia.

“John has been wanting to celebrate with close friends from the industry for a while and when everyone’s time matched, he invited them over to chill. Both John and Priya were great hosts and personally looked after their guests,” one of the attendees told Mirror.

He starts shooting for the next schedule of Batla House in Lucknow from November 21, after which he will kick off Anees Bazmee’s Pagalpanti in February, which is being produced by Kumar Mangat and his son Abhishek Pathak. All three were at the bash. The surprise guest was Harshvardhan Rane who is rumoured to be dating Mohabbatein girl Kim Sharma. He arrived with the actress.