Home truths of our celebrities

Take Mannat — the lair of Shah Rukh Khan — for example. “Sorry, nobody is allowed inside. I meet all my visitors here,” Shah Rukh had said once smilingly when we had pressed to go and shoot inside the bungalow.

Like Emperor Akbar had divided his court into two parts — Dewan-e-Aam (the durbar for the junta) and Dewan-e-Khaas (the special court) — Shah Rukh Khan’s bungalow is also divided into two parts. His office is located at the Dewan-e-Aam where he meets outsiders. For Dewan-e-Khaas, you need an access card, which is only there with a maximum of 25 people, his close aides say.

The one thing that you cannot miss if you go inside Amitabh Bachchan’s bungalow Jalsa in Juhu is his huge staircase. The spiral staircase that has been bordered with photographs of Amitabh of all ages — right from his early black & white days, techno-colour days to the digital colour era. You will find ‘various’ Amitabh Bachchans staring at you from all directions as climb up the staircase.

“My sister stays with us but on a different wing. In a lot of ways, it’s her own pad,” says Tusshar Kapoor, when asked where his sister Ekta stays. Well, what you see next is a huge elevator made of pure German bullet-proof glass. “That is only Ekta’s lift. She doesn’t like anybody getting into that except for her close friends and family members,” says a friend when he visited her house for a party.

Other than Ekta, Salman Khan is also very protective about his own space. “The gym and the studio is Sallu’s own space. We can’t pass a phone around when he is there. When he is in the gym or in the studio, it means that Sallu generally doesn’t want to be disturbed unless it’s very urgent,” says Salman’s mother Salma.

Even Hrithik Roshan has a gym occupying a large part of the first floor of his three-floor apartment in Juhu.
But the prize for being possessive must go to Saif Ali Khan. “He has converted his Khar apartment into a duplex. The mezzanine floor has Saif’s costly gadgets — his XBox, music system etc. Saif is very protective about his gadgets,” says a close friend of the star.