No stars in their eyes

They say it takes a long time to grow an old friend. In the flaky world of Bollywood’s fickle fame, loyalty is at a premium Glory is transient and money can’t buy true friends. That’s why Bollywood’s reigning queen bee, Deepika Padukone’s recent confession comes as no surprise. She admitted, “I am quite a reserved, shy, and quiet person. I very rarely interact with people I haven’t known for a very long time. That’s why I always say my best friends are friends from school and the ones that I have grown up with. Those are the friendships that I cherish the most.” And as a testimony to her loyalty she flew to Rajasthan in economy class with her school besties for the bachelorette party of her buddy Srila Rao. Hiteshi Mehta, who has been friends with Deepika since their schooldays at Sophia High school in Bengaluru, deconstructs the persona behind the star. “When we went to Udaipur, she flew economy with us, because we didn’t want to shell out the business class fare. But there were people staring and walking up and down the aisle just to get a glimpse of her. We felt bad for putting her through it.

There was this one guy, who brought his kid, stood in front of us and pointed to Deepika saying, ‘Beta dekho Deepika Padukone.’ And he kept repeating it, though the kid was least interested. We were so put off by it that we had to tell him to get back to his seat,” says the lady who is into organic farming and fashion exports.

Deepika is the highest earning female actor and lives in her plush penthouse in Mumbai. But her starry side is clearly confined to her films. Says Hiteshi, “We spent New Year’s Eve in New York last year and she had to pick the hotel for our stay. But the hotels she picked were quite expensive. So we told her we can’t really afford to spend so much, so she came down on her budget. And if we plan to go on a holiday and find that it’s working out too expensive, we’ll postpone it by a few months so that all of us are in a position to afford it or re-do the budgets and she doesn’t really have a problem with it. But we do try to stay in places that give her the privacy she needs.”

Hyderabad-based jewellery designer and entrepreneur Bunty Bajaj shares a long-standing friendship with Bollywood star Anil Kapoor’s family. “I met his wife Sunita for the first time in Hyderabad at a wedding, my brother-in-law called me from Mumbai and requested me to take her shopping. We clicked instantly and have been close friends since then. To me, Sunita, Anil and their kids, Sonam, Harsh and Rhea are family. That is the only house where I can enter in my track pants and T-shirt with no make-up and not a care in the world. Sunita has made it a point to attend every landmark occasion in my life. She, Sonam, Rhea and Harsh even attended my son Samarth’s wedding in Oman in December. I remember I had opened my first dingy boutique in Hyderabad in ’86 and Anil, despite being a huge star, flew down with Sunita to attend the launch. Anil is a simple guy and has no airs. I can be open about my opinions with the family. If I don’t like something I can express myself without reservation.”

Stars are so used to being fawned and flattered that they seek a reality check from their loved ones. Hiteshi too admits to being honest with Deepika. “When Happy New Year released, I watched it, but didn’t really like it and especially her role in it. And I told her so. She just took it in her stride, like she does any criticism I give her. Sometimes when she does have a point to make, she explains herself, but not unnecessarily so.”

Designer Ramesh Dembla from Bengaluru calls Bollywood star Akshay Kumar his ‘best friend and soulmale’. “I’m also very frank with him and tell him if I don’t like something about him or his movies and he takes it very sportingly,” he says adding, “The best thing about him is that however busy and whichever country he is in, he will always call and connect. When we hang around we find pleasure in small things like playing dumb charades, which is a must on all our charter flights, jangle (a word game) on our phones, playing KBC on our phones competing with each other.”

The stars, who are loved by millions, know that the adulation is as short-lived as their careers. That is why they consciously seek the comfort of old friends. “Deepika’s friendship with us has remained the same throughout. Sometimes if she doesn’t hear from us for long, she texts us no matter how busy she is to ask if everything is alright. It’s like a normal friendship. We don’t see her how the rest of the world sees her. For us she’ll always be that little girl we met in school and soon became fast friends with,” says Hiteshi.

Dembla believes that the people who are meant to be in your life will always gravitate back to you, no matter how far they wander. “Akshay and I were meant to be good friends, I met him 25 years back during the shoot of Waqt Hamara and feel like his long lost brother. It must be some really good connection that despite being in fields where both of us find it hard to stay true to real friendships, we are just as close as we were when we met,” he adds.

With inputs from Namita Gupta and Rashmi Rajgopal