He was joking when on bhai dooj he promised to cut down on sleep and promote sister Ekta Kapoor’s film, The Dirty Picture (TDP), which opens on December 2. But Tusshar Kapoor finds himself doing just that. After dancing on the Madh island beach all night with Riteish Deshmukh for Kya Super Kool Hain Hum, the actor took the 7 am flight to Kolkata, last Friday.

“I had a catch in my back but went straight in for rehearsals so I could swing to my dad’s (Jeetendra) Tohfa (1984) song, Ta thaiya…, and Oo la la… from TDP that evening. Then there was a press conference at which I did almost 50 interviews to pacify a disgruntled media that had been kept waiting because of some misinformation. Only after that could I go to my room and crash for some much-needed sleep,” he says.

On Sunday, his 35th birthday, Tusshar was in Patna, almost being crushed in a stampede when he visited a cineplex with another co-star from TDP, Emraan Hashmi. Later, undeterred by a mob of at least 20,000 fans who had scared Emraan away, Tusshar visited a Hanuman Temple to seek the Lord’s blessings. “It was a working birthday. I cut a cake at the cineplex and the airport, but the real party happened the night before, with friends,” he admits.

So what did Ekta gift him? “She will attach the promos of my next film, Char Din Ki Chandni, to the prints of TDP,” he smiles, elated by the audience’s reaction to his latest movie. “Everyone knows about TDP and is talking about it. In Kolkata, they were all commenting on my character’s resemblance to dad, and Vidya’s to Sridevi from their ’80s blockbusters, while in Patna, they were eager to hear me speak after the ‘speechless’ Golmaal series.”