Guys, you have to come with me to Mumbai’s Lokhandwala complex. Every second man, woman and child there is a movie star in the making. Babies who can barely toddle are dolled up in ribbons-‘n’-lace to audition for diaper commercials. Even pomeranians are shampooed-‘n’-styled for their street strolls just in case a talent scout is looking for a doggy hero for a 3-D animal adventure flick. Woof, yeh mohabbat.

Once the star power concentration — in the 1960s-’70s — was on Bandra Pali Hill. Next hot address: Juhu-Vile Parle Development scheme. And then you have to credit Amrita Singh, a real-estate hawk, for first buying a two-storey bungalow in the back-of-beyond Lokhandwala then, a vast stretch ringed by the Versova seafronts.
Next you know is that there are reports about Saif Ali Khan strolling their pet pooches down the lanes. Which was fine, except that the reports claimed that Saif was sighted in a pink frilly nighty. Whoa, Lokhandwala was happening. The tiddybitty columns had moved to gossipier pastures. With time and tide, Bandra became as desperately Sunset Boulevard as the full-of-herself Rekhaji. She’s still on Bandra boulevard, in a stucco villa, where no men are allowed but, as she says, him. How stupendously boring.
Truly areas and neighbourhoods where the star people reside and sometimes work, too, affect their attitude, lifestyles and productivity. So now the concentration is on Lokhandwala which has more shootings than shootouts really.
It’s also a maze of haphazardly architected high-rises where struggling heroes and heroines head. Boys strut around in jeans tighter than the nation’s economy. Girls hang out at coffee shops, wearing skirts smaller than the pocket money sent by their doting parents, out there in Delhi, Jharkand, Uttaranchal, oh oh even as far-off as Toronto and New Jersey.
As it happens, the Lokhandwala pioneer — Amrita Singh aka Dingy — has moved out since she’s no longer in the movies (TV maybe, once in an Ekta Kapoor moon). Saif doesn’t wear nighties. The Saifding Villa was rented for a while by Shatrughan Sinha who’d flip out if his daughter Sonakshi even talked about revealing costumes. Khamosh! he’d go to any cavilling.
Shiney Ahuja killed his career and much worse in his Lokhand-wala apartment. Urmila Matondkar also strangled her career by moving out of the environs and hanging out with the Bandra types. Saroj Khan is around there somewhere, a left-right-left from the lotus-shaped petrol station. Shah Rukh Khan, Rakesh Roshan, Suneil Darshan, Boney Kapoor and too many etceteras operate offices from Lokhandwala and its surroundings hedged in by malls, multiplexes, massage parlours (hmmmm) and multi-cuisine eateries.
Directors of cinematography and editors are around. Aspiring scritpwriters wielding their laptops like AK-47s want to be seen by Aditya Chopra when he steps out of his cloak at the Yashraj studio. Reliance honchos, Balaji ditto, they’re all there within coughing distance of the early settlers Manisha Koirala, Dipti Naval, Tabu, Rani Mukherjee (who may or may not return to the spot from her ‘unlucky’ Juhu bangla).
And hey, the frontline TV actors and models zip around in high-end cars. And just in case you’re missing the top power quotient, Priyanka Chopra and Shahid Kapoor breathe the same air despite their split or whatever. Ancient history lessons Chandrachur Singh, Celina Jaitly, Neelam Kothari and Bhumika Chawla had pitched their tents at a javelin’s distance from Lokhandwala. Farah Khan has moved in as Himesh Reshammiya’s Versova neighbour and what do you know?... both are in Salman Khan’s terrific books right now. Toes crossed. Genelia Deshmukh may or may not continue to stay in those parts but er... Alka Yagnik will.
Lokhandwala is one big movie set, crowded and claustrophobic. Tourists curious about the Bolly-flavour should catch it before it ends… just like every movie does.