For the recent HTBrunch interview, we caught up with Pooja Bhatt at her sprawling farmhouse in Kalote, 2 kms off Old Mumbai - Pune highway. The farmhouse is perched amid lush greenery surrounded by the Western Ghaat range, there is also a waterfall inside the property we were later told!
A nondescript iron gate that greets us with a humble ‘beware of dogs’ sign and as we enter, we spot six of them playing with balding guy in blue Tee-shirt and military green cargo pants. All six of them looked completely at home with this man whose face looked very familiar… but we could really recognise the man. It looked somewhat like Manish Makhija, aka Channel V’s Udham Singh, who made Hariyanvi cool much before Dangal happened. Manish, fondly known as Munna, was also Pooja Bhatt’s ex-husband. But it was unlikely that any star would have his ex-husband hanging around when she had called the media home. But then this was Pooja Bhatt, as unconventional and unorthodox as ever.
The team goes and says hi to him and makes sure that he was indeed the man. But we were still hesitant to ask Pooja what her husband of 11 years, whom she had amicably broke up with three years back, is doing in her farmhouse.
Sensing our curiosity she smiles and reveals that in fact they are still not legally separated! “You know, we never really got divorced on paper!” WHAT?
“I don’t believe that a piece of paper can decide your relationship status. We made a choice to get married, to stay together, to end our marriage, and to remain friends. We never had any kind of obligations in our relationship other than when you have is that when you hold each other’s hand, you never let it go of it. That’s the kind of person I am and that’s the kind of person Munna is. You need not live in the same room for that.” Well, that sets the mood of the interview, expect the unexpected here, and be prepared for surprises!
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From HT Brunch, July 11, 2017
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