The angry neighbours of celebrities

MUMBAI: They may not lend you pepper, store your milk bottles or pay your electricity bills, but famous neighbours can increase the market value of your flat and leave some stardust on the sleeves. The benefits of having celebrities next door probably ends there. Housing societies are replete with complaints from distraught men and women who are unable to handle the unnatural ways of the famous types.Sometime ago, a starlet was seen in the garden "in action" as a neighbour puts it, with a Hindi film actor living in the same residential complex. Rani Mukerji's family is often accused of blocking the common elevator in their building for personal use. Shakti Kapoor, in his Juhu residence, was once sighted running almost naked in the stairway and he has also been accused of urinating in the lift shaft. When asked, the actor said that the incidents had occurred years ago, and subsequently he realised that he was wrong. Now, he and his neighbours even send each other food.
When Aishwarya Rai lived in Lokhandwala, Salman Khan woke the neighbours up in the night with his tantrums. Now that the actress stays in Bandra, the security staff keeps a strict watch on who comes to visit her and at what time. Even the bhajiwali is screened by the guards. Both Rai and her famous neighbour, Sachin Tendulkar, have their own personal guards manning the exit and entry points. As a result, the building has too many guards. And these innumerable guards, till recently, used to lie around in full public view in tiny indecent shorts, offending the sensibilities of the residents who made a formal complaint.
Last year, Aditya Panscholi was in the news for fracturing his neighbour's nose over a parking issue. Panscholi's neighbour Pratik Niraj Pasrani faced the brunt of the actor's anger when he asked the building watchman to remove a vehicle that had been parked in his allotted space. The vehicle belonged to Panscholi's guest. "There has been no more trouble with the neighbours ever since," Panscholi says.
Thousands in this country might aspire to be Amitabh Bachchan's neighbours but to those who already are, it is not a very pleasurable experience. After renovation work in his office premises continued late in the night disturbing the neighbourhood, some residents complained to the police. Usually, police complaints against celebrities do not yield the desired results but in this case the matter was amicably sorted out. If the neighbour is a politician, a successful politician that is, such happy endings will be rare.
The residents of J P Nagar in Bangalore are regularly harassed by the fans of Ambareesh, an actor-turned-politician and now union minister of state for Information and Broadcasting. The night before his birthday spells doom for anyone living on the same street as him. Fans make themselves comfortable in just about anybody's building compound. "A boutique opposite Ambareesh's house remains closed on that day and the previous day, fearing damage. Once we had to wait for over two hours in the night to be able to park our car in the garage since fans were busy decorating the street and refused to budge," says a disgruntled neighbour. "He (Ambareesh) does apologise the next day, but it doesn't solve anything."
When Kannada film doyen Rajkumar passed away in Bangalore this April, the entire neighbourhood of Sadashivanagar became a free-for-all. While Rajkumar's house was the epicentre of violent reactions, admirers who had come from across the state did not leave his neighbours' homes alone. They climbed on roofs of the immediate neighbour's home to express their grief, breaking a few windows and damaging a car.
Jayalalithaa's neighbours in Poes Garden enjoy good power and water supply due to their proximity to the woman but they are often harassed by her guards. The Poes Garden Residents' Association got together and sent her a letter. "We wrote a mild letter to her pointing out the problems we faced with the guards. From then on, they stopped harassing us," says R Ravikrishnan, a former neighbour. "There's no advantage to being a celebrity's neighbour. Jayalalithaa's only acknowledgement of us is a fleeting smile or a namaste when her convoy passes."
Vijay Kenkre is an irate resident of Kala Nagar, also home to Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray in Mumbai. "You know, I stay besides remote control," says Kenkre. Eight to ten luxury cars line the road that leads to his and Thackeray's home. "Any new car in the market will be here," says Kenkre, who often has to face the brunt of being a VIP's neighbour when he returns late in the night. At that time, the roll call of Thackeray's staff is usually taken, and they occupy the whole road refusing to budge till the ritual is over. Many times, Kenkre has been asked to step out of the taxi and foot it to his home. The theatre director's wife and father are more aggressive. They have complained several times to the security in charge about their insensitive ways. Every time they complain, some action is taken. Then the problem returns. In Madhya Pradesh, one politician is famous for getting drunk and creating loud brawls. But, no one has dared to complain yet.
(With inputs by Meena Iyer, Sandeep Mishra, T S Sreenivasa Raghavan and Swati Anand)