Self-proclaimed ‘silver fox’, model and actor with a handlebar moustache and a clear focus on his life’s goals, Dinesh Mohan has defied age, coming off as an unpretentious grown man as he took the stage at Outlook Money’s 40After40 Retirement Expo on Wednesday amid audience’s applause.

The model-actor was invited as a special guest to the event to share his incredible story of recovery from extreme depression to a successful career in modelling and plans for retirement. Amazingly, his pursuit to reinvent himself in the face of his darkest days, disillusioned, bedridden, and depressed with suicidal thoughts, transformed him into a role model and celebrity.

In a conversation, Mohan lays bare his torments, triumphs, vulnerabilities, and plans for the future.

So, what does he truly value about himself and others?

Says Mohan, “My capacity to reinvent myself, and I’m sure everybody else. If I could reinvent myself, who had no hope, bedridden, everybody had given up hope on me like a ‘khota sikka’ (fake), and everything was over for me, so if I can do it, anybody can do it.”

His desire to make a difference in life and keep the good things going gave him a purpose and a new direction in life. “I love where I am at a point of my life. I am 65 and feel I am only just starting,” he says. So, when does he plan to retire?

“I don’t call it retirement. It’s reinvention. Everybody who is doing a job or regularly working has to retire from it, but no one retires and should retire as life goes on,” he says.

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Reinvention Redefined

Mohan’s life has been one of constant self-discovery. From being bedridden to battling depression, he had almost given up on life. He would look at people walking on their feet, and he was unable to move; his thoughts did turn suicidal. He thought death was anyway better than living the way he was. But then something changed. And his journey of reinvention began.

He bravely talks about mental health, recognising it and seeking help.

Mohan says that he read an autobiography of A. Yogi and Brian Weiss and realised that he was not alone, not the only one facing the odds hurled by life.

Asked what the book on his life should be titled if it is written someday, he replies, “he lived life”.

Mohan has recently started his own clothing label that aims to redefine formal dressing, quite apropos of how he has redefined his life.

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When you meet the person, Dinesh Mohan, you simply get to know the person who is living his life to the fullest—whether on the ramp or off it.