“It’s my 100th interview. I am tired,” says Shekhar Suman. Can’t blame him, the media has been hounding him, because he found himself on Dr Trupti Jain’s couch to unlock his raaz, pichhle janam ka. Suman recently shot for Raaz Pichhle Janam Ka,inspired by Dr Brian Weiss’ book on past-life therapy, Many Masters Many Lives. He participated in the show to meet his son, Aayush, who had died at a very tender age. He wanted to know if his son was part of his last birth too and he did, to his surprise! Suman also discovered that he was a soldier born in 1873 in Scotland. His name was Fredrick, his wife Maria, who “interestingly looked like my present wife, Alka. She was blonde, but the eyes were the same,” and his son, Vincent, “who I had lost then too. In fact my entire family,my parents, my wife, my son had died in a nasty fire and I hadn’t been able to save them. Later, I too had jumped off the balcony because of that guilt.” The actor says it was a “catharsis, an emotionally exhausting journey for me to reconnect, touch base with that particular part of my past life. I won’t call it hypnotism or trance…it’s some sort of a paranormal journey at a subconscious level. It’s like you go deeper into a dream, you relive that part of your life, find certain answers and come back. But believe you me, sometimes you don’t even come back,you stay there in the past. In the book, it’s there that a few of them couldn’t come back to their present but thank God, I hadn’t read it otherwise I wouldn’t have gone. All I told them was in case something happens to me, take care of my wife and my son, Adhyayan.” He likens the whole experience to bungee jumping. “It’s at once both exhilarating and scary. You know it’s going to be exciting when you completely give in to it but there is also that fear. I was on the couch for almost two-three hours while the entire thing we shot for was about six hours.” Ask him how Jain is able to tap into a particular problem area and if Suman had told her about it and he shakes his head. “She wasn’t briefed though there is a pre-session where she speaks to you about your life, fears, etc. She’s like the driver at the steering wheel.She will take you on a ride and you just might hit the right spot,sooner or later. It’s like trying to tune your radio frequency.Sometimes you get it within minutes,sometimes the wait is long. But it works therapeutically. It did for me because I could meet my son,hug him, see him…” Uncannily, Suman claims that he has a fear in his present life of standing in a balcony. “I have a fear of heights and particularly when I stand in my balcony, I feel I just might jump off or get pushed and die…may be that’s got something to do with my suicide in my last birth. You know, Aayush too had a fear of bursting crackers…may be because he had died in a fire last time, he was scared of it this time! These are all unanswered questions but I am glad I went through it. Let’s face it, everyone is curious about their past life. I could have gone to a clinic and get it done but when a celebrity does that on TV, the common man can relate to it too. We are humans too.” Er,and a celebrity gets paid too! Coming to his other show, Perfect Bride which has reached its finale,he says he’s glad being part of it. “Yes, it did bother me when we felt some of them were not interested in marrying or had come for money or fame but the fact that there are at least two couples –Hitesh and Rumpa and Priyanka and Rajbir who are willing to marry is gratifying. Hitesh and Rumpa have already exchanged rings and passed through their pre-climax stage…I am sure their relationship will reach its logical end and if it doesn’t, it will be frustrating, annoying and disturbing. But aisa hoga nahin,” he signs off, smiling. This episode airs on Imagine tonight at 9.30.