Steve Jobs and Dan Kottke

Ashton Kutcher in Delhi

Did you know Delhi has a Facebook Fanpage? Better yet, they even posted this picture of a bearded Ashton Kutcher walking around Old Delhi near Jama Masjid. In case you were wondering, he’s in India shooting sequences for the upcoming Steve Jobs biopic. Sadly girlfriend Mila Kunis isn’t on the trip with him or that would have been quite a Kodak moment! If you’re hoping to do some celebrity spotting Kutcher is staying at the upscale Claridges Hotel in Delhi till September 3rd.

Steve Jobs Biopic

Steve and Ashton

In case you didn’t know, Steve Jobs’ India connection goes back to 1973 when he was an 18-year-old backpacker and an Atari employee. He visited India with his buddy Dan Kottke after both friends dropped out of Reed College in Portland, Oregon. The were all about the the ashram of an Indian mystic named Neem Karoli Baba but by the time they got there he had already passed away. Next they visited the ashram of another mystic, Hariakhan Baba and traveled around North Indian including the capital Delhi.

Steve Jobs and Dan Kottke

According to unofficial Steve Jobs autobiography iCon, Dan Kotke says, “He was totally determined to go to India. He felt some kind of unresolved pain over being adopted. That was the same period that he hired a private investigator to try and track down his mother. He was obsessed with it for a while.”

In New Delhi, Steve chose to don a lungi and roam around barefoot embracing Indian culture. India both traumatised Steve Jobs and changed his life. He returned to Atari a Buddhist, and a more focused and hardened individual. After returning to Atari, Jobs’ rekindled his friendship with high school mate Steve Wozniak who was working at Hewlett-Packard then. Together, the two Steves launched a startup called Apple Computer from Jobs’ garage in Palo Alto, California.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak

Incredible how much Ashton looks like a young Mr. Jobs isn’t it? I guess that explains the casting!

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