KUCH SITAARE KE BUNGALE AASMAN TAK UDDGAYE, KUCH BUNGALE MITTI MEIN MILL GAYE .... BY ALI PETER JOHN

There was a time when stars were not as visible as they are today because of their being seen on social media and other media all though the day and even all through the night - Ali Peter John

Some of the biggest stars made it a rule not to attend too many public functions and do all the things that could only lead to overexposure which they feared and hated. They lived in their own cocoons and nests built by themselves all in massive apartments which were as big as bungalows.

A star was considered a big star only if he or she had a big bungalow somewhere in Bandra or Juhu and people, the fans from outside Bombay who couldn't see the stars under any circumstances had to be happy just looking at the bungalows or the apartments they lived in or get themselves photographed outside some of the more popular bungalows of the legendary stars.

There used to be crowds of fans outside the bungalows of Dilip Kumar on Pali Hill where he lived when he was a bachelor, Dev Anand and Rajendra Kumar, the“Jubilee Star".

How a bungalow without a star living in it is and how it becomes after a star takes it over and makes it his residence and the difference between the two can be best seen in this case.

There was this very big producer called N.C Sippy who made artistic films with directors like Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Gulzar and the noted director from the South, S. Raamanathan. He had built a moderately good bungalow in Juhu called“Bindiya". Amitabh Bachchan had become the mega star and he felt that one bunglow ,“Prateeksha"was not enough for the Bachchan family.

He was doing some films with N.C Sippy and Sippy and his sons, produced Romu Sippy and director Raj.N. Sippy who had made films like“Inkaar"and“Satte Pe Satta"were for some reasons not interested in living in“Bindiya"as they realised that maintaining a bungalow in Bombay was a very costly affair and they shifted to Chand Terraces in Bandra where they had a huge apartment to themselves and shifted there but not before giving away“Bindiya"to Amitabh Bachchan as his fee for one of their films.

Amitabh being a very practical man rebuilt“Bindiya"and first planned to present the new bungalow to his brother, Ajitabh Bachchan who had played a very vital role in his growing into a star. But, there were apparently some differences and "Bindiya" was turned into“Jalsa"where Amitabh, Jaya, Abhishek, Ashwariya and their daughter Aaradhaya live and Amitabh has his own office in“Jalsa"with Ms Rosy Singh as his manager and an entire team. What is more significant is that“Jalsa"has now become like a place of pilgrimage for thousands of people from all over who throng“Jalsa", especially on Saturday and Sunday evenings and on the evenings of every major holidays, only to have a two minute glimpse of the star of the millennium.

“Prateeksha"is still their as a witness to a great past and very few knew that Amitabh has an extremely soft and emotional corner for“Prateeksha"where he spents some of the best times with his parents and his children, Abhishek and Shweta when they were growing up and so returns to“Prateeksha"every night and sleeps in the place he was always sleeping in.

There is one more Bachchan bungalow in the vicinity called“Janak"which is like the head office of Amish Amitabh and his company AB Corp. The place which was called“Bindiya"and stood silently in a corner is now one of the most famous actresses in India and even the world, all because of Amitabh Bachchan living there.....

It is while talking about“Jalsa"that my mind goes back to the star bungalows of the past and how they have gone way, vanished from the face of Mumbai...

“Aashirwaad"was one of the fairy tale kind of bungalows when Rajesh Khanna lived there as the first superstar of India. He had bought the place from Rajendra Kumar for a few lakhs only and had bought it because he believed that Kumar's luck would rub in to him and he too would be a successful star, but he went beyond all his wildest dreams which made him extra-human, but also led to the most disastrous downfall of a superstar.

There was a temporary plan made by his family to convert the bungalow into a museum after his death, but nothing like that has happened and“Aashirwaad"has been demolished and in its place has come up another bungalow which is the fulfillment of another young man's dream.

This could be a place with a very strange story. It was once called a haunted house, then became one of the most popular houses whose walls girls kissed when they couldn't see the superstar.“Aashirwaad"and its history has certainly got a lesson to teach all human beings, if they care to listen to....

It was in the fifties that the“emperor of acting", Dilip Kumar had built his own bungalow on Pali Hill where he lived less and celebrated life more. It was as if it was the centre of the universe.

If you didn't know where Dilip Kumar's bungalow was, you didn't know anything about Bombay, was the general belief. Things however changed in 1960 when the most eligible bachelor of the country married Saira Banu who was twenty-two years younger than him and he shifted to her bungalow down the same lane, a bungalow which was built by a singing-star called Shamshad Begam which was handed down to her daughter, Naseem Banu who was a beauty queen and an actress who then handed over the bungalow to her daughter, Saira Banu.

The legend who was not attached to worldly matters literally neglected his own bungalow which was one day in serious trouble when some rich man claimed that the bungalow belonged to him and his family.

The bungalow was under demolition and there is a stay on the demolition, but the bungalow is in a dilapidated condition which is symbolic of the condition Dilip Kumar himself is at ninety-six and in a very sorry condition.....

In the same area of Pali Hill, two other big stars, Sunil Dutt and Rajendra Kumar had built their own bungalows at costs which cannot be imagined today.

The stars saw the futility of having bungalows and sold them to bidders who offered them staggering sums of money and apartments for each member of their family.

Where Sunil Dutt had his house, there are two massive buildings called“Imperial Heights"and where Rajendra Kumar's bungalow and sound recording studio was, now stands Dimple Apartments, named after his daughter Dimple.

There was a very big star in the sixties called Bharat Bhushan who had his own bungalow in Bandra but with his royal lifestyle, he couldn't maintain the bungalow and had to sell it and he kept falling till he had to live in a one room apartment and work in bit roles to make a living. He had to finally shift to a smaller flat in Malad where he died a miserable death and there were hardly eight people at his funeral.

The veteran comedian Johnny Walker who started as a nobody went on to build his own bungalow on Cater Road and named it Noor Villa (Noor was the name of his wife) .

He couldn't maintain his popularity and couldn't change with the changing times. His sons tried to make it as actors, but they failed miserably. Johnny Walker (Badruddin Qazi) could not maintain his bungalow and had to sell it and move to an apartment in the Lokhandwala area where he lived for a few years, but did not have his heart in his new house which was in the midst of a very crowded area which was so very different from the peaceful atmosphere he lived on Cater Road.

Noor Villa had to make way for a concrete and cement monstrosity. Johnny Walker couldn't be the same man again and he died of a massive heart attack in his Lokhandwala apartment one afternoon.

Dev Anand had built his own bungalow,“Iris Park"in Juhu which has still not been touched by the ravages of time, but the bungalow stands alone with only his wife, Kalpana Karthik having gospel meetings in it, while her son, Sunil Anand has been missing from India for the last two years.

However Dev's bungalow on Pali Hill which was presented to him by Mr Larsen of the Larsen & Toubro company without any money exchanged has been demolished with a multi-storeyed building coming up in its place and the dream penthouse and studio promised to Dev Saahab by the builder are all dead dreams.

The bungalow built by the communist-actor, Balraj Sahni is in a collapsed state and one of his daughters lives there at great risk just to claim a bungalow while her brother, Parikshit Sahni shows no interest and it is his daughters who lives in Singapore who are fighting a legal dispute with their aunt to claim the bungalow.

The other bungalows which have made way for huge buildings are“Laxmi Villa"which was the house of Manoj Kumar and has now been replaced by two towers called“Goswami Towers", the bungalows of big producers like Ramanand Sagar, Arun Sagar, Atma Ram, the younger brother of Guru Dutt, T.C Dewaan has been developed into Rani Villa which is a cluster of apartments.

The bungalows in a precarious condition are of the one-time female superstar, Mala Sinha, the bungalow of music director Naushad and the massive bungalow of Ashok Kumar in Chembur and who knows, even the Deonar Cottage house built by Raj Kapoor.

Builders who have seen how big studios like Natraj Studios and RK Studios have gone down into the pits can see that other similar celebrity structures are also brought down....

The land sharks and the builders'lobby have their hungry eyes even on historic places like“Rafi Mansion", the house of Muhammad Rafi, “Gauri Kunj", the house Kishore Kumar built and above all the still lonely bungalow of Dev Anand in a place called prime property.

Will these sharks and hungry pythons grab these once bungalows of fame and further reduced Mumbai to a city of cardboard boxes and paper made apartments? The present has a lot of answering to do in the near future.