He courted limelight and controversy posing in the nude with then girlfriend Madhu Sapre, wrapped by a python, for a shoe commercial in the nineties, and did much the same again nearly three decades later when he ran in his birthday suit on a Goa beach to celebrate his 55th birthday last month. Milind Soman, model and fitness freak, always lives up to his sex symbol tag with aplomb, and says the definition doesn't bother him.

"The tag of sex symbol doesn't bother me. I will tell you why -- because, for a man to be regarded as a sex symbol is great. Men are very happy to be regarded as sex symbols because that is something extra for them," Milind told IANS.