The Bhagats of 38, Pali Hill
By Vishwas Kulkarni, Sunil Baghel and Bapu Deedwania
At the centre of the bitter dispute over a 20,000 square foot Bandra bungalow is Rajani Bhagat, the embattled 80-year- old matriarch of the Nirlon empire, and her two warring daughters, Poonam Bhagat and Sheetal Mafatlal.
Two scandals last week have brought into the spotlight a very troubled residence: 38 Pali Hill, a sprawling 20,000 square foot bungalow in Mumbai’s toniest neighbourhoods. This is the home where Poonam and Sheetal Bhagat grew up. The two sisters went on to respectively marry Jaidev Shroff (of the 2000-cr United Phosphorus) and Atulya Mafatlal (of the legendary textile family).
So how did the two Bandra girls rule Mumbai society and what eventually led to their fall from grace? The two are daughters of Manhar Bhagat, a respected businessman who headed the Nirlon empire, and Rajani, who hailed from a family of wealthy jewellers in Gujarat. Society doyennes of yore remember him as a dignified man of fine tastes, and her as a feisty woman, with a propensity towards belligerence.
Rajani and Manhar Bhagat's name also cropped up in 2001, when IPS officer turned politician Jaspal Singh, booked Rajani under the prevention of black marketing act for mixing solvents in petrol. Rajani was then the owner of Bombay Garage petrol pump in Ahmedabad. That said, Rajani has been known to file complaints of theft against guests who she had invited for dinner to her lavish home.
The two sisters are antipodal in personalities. The grist mills have it that a man is at the centre of it – Poonam was allegedly engaged to Atulya Mafatlal, until Sheetal and he clapped eyes on one another. The family broke up. The rest is luncheon chatter, even though Sheetal vehemently claims that this rumour was planted by her sister-in-law to malign her. Fast forward to the new millineium.
Sheetal marries Atulya in 2000. She launches herself as society’s most glamorous hostess, international celebrities are in her living room and on her speed dial. She wears only couture, drives a sports car, has Donatella Versace make her frocks, wears emeralds the size of ice-cubes. All that was missing was a diamond diadem, and she would have very well bought herself an island to crown herself queen.
Poonam Shroff finds love again. She first dated diamantier Devaunshi Mehta’s brother for years. And then falls for the much-married Shroff. She waits patiently for his marriage to end, and before she announces hers to him – how else, but on her handbag. She announces herself as one of the biggest art patrons in the country and buys more priceless art works than a national museum. She sponsors the Kochi Biennale, flies around in a private jet with liveried servants and her hairdresser as her entourage.
Then: both their marriages fall apart. In the midst of fighting their own private matrimonial battles, they also make time to fight each other in courts. Last week’s fracas being the latest, when Sheetal barged into Bandra’s Bhagat House with bouncers in tow, in a bid to stake her claim to her ancestral property. Rajani and Poonam, in turn, file a complaint against her. And we all wait with bated breath and hungry eyes to see how this will eventually play out.
This newspaper’s crime reporter, Nazia Sayed, was at the scene when Rajani filed a complaint against Sheetal. “Meri dono betiyan nikambi hain (both my daughters are useless),” she had told her then.
A fashion doyenne, who has known the Bhagat sisters for two decades, blames it on the mother’s obsession with money. “They are the product of their mother. The father was extremely gentle, but the mother always pitted one against the other,” she recalls. “Despite the rarefied circle we belonged to, they came from such unimaginable wealth, even by our standards. You can’t be normal with that sort of upbringing. Today it is money that has brought them such anguish and shame.”
When we had phoned Sheetal for an interview, a PR agent responded, “See, Sheetal would love to host you for an interview at her bungalow. But the fear is that if she comes to the gate to collect you, Poonam might push her out of the house, slam the gates shut and refuse to let her back in. So, would a telephonic be alright?”
Over the phone, Sheetal is relaxed and chatty. “I had a very close relationship with my father. Poonam was my mother’s favoured child. We had a very happy childhood when my grandparents were around. They were extremely glamorous and dignified.” So when did things go wrong with her sister? “We never had a relationship from as far back as I can remember. Two, three, five?”
A chronicler of society for over four decades adds: “The word I would use to describe Rajani would not be intelligent, it would not be sharp, it would be crafty. The daughters have picked up whatever traits they have from the mother. I think this is a story of avarice. A couple of hundred crores here and there is loose change for these types,” she avers. “Whatever said and done, those jewels that Sheetal wears are priceless, whether they are stolen, borrowed or embezzled. This is a story of bottomless greed.”
Money is a serious concern among the Bhagat matriarch and her daughters. In a letter dated 18 July 2011, addressed to Sheetal, Rajani wrote: “When you came down on me with so much viciousness you forgot, in time of need your mother stood by you physically, mentally and monetarily – totally thru Customs, Trips – One year 10 months spree in London and trip to St. Moritz/Paris/South of France/Las Palms without flinching [sic]. Since I see so much resentment I could adjust it against your dues!!? Even my goodwill gesture of giving 1/3rd of my shares was not appreciated. What mother am I? Mahatma Gandhi printer?”
“The girls were very well-educated,” says a former friend of theirs. “They were trained to be businesswomen, not housewives. When we were young they would come over often. They would tell me to read Forbes and Business Insider, so I would know all the rich boys.”
“That’s the life my mother gave me,” says Sheetal. “She taught me all this.”
A childhood friend of the sisters says they have an extraordinary appetite for legal battles. “Normal people get dented by bad press, court cases. Not these sisters. I’ve known them since I was a kid, and these girls can out-fight anybody.”
Does Sheetal suffer from fatigue – social, legal, mental? “It’s not a question of settling scores. Litigation is about establishing your right. What is your birth right, what God has given to you,” she adds. “Atulya’s family fights have nothing to do with me. It was his inheritance he was securing for his children, primarily his son. When Atulya’s father (patriarch Yogendra Mafatlal) died in 2005, his mother and his four, er, his three sisters, at that time ganged up together and wanted to get 50 per cent of the father’s estate. When they legally lost, Ajay-Aparna Mafatlal, whatever you call her, and the other sister Gayatri Jhaveri and her husband Priyam Jhaveri – they decided to create a campaign which was basically go-to-court, validate everything, and leak it to the media. It was a go-to-court-to-go-press campaign. It was a smear campaign,” Sheetal offers. “Besides, why would I give up my tenancy rights to the Bhagat bungalow?”
Rajani, in her reply to Sheetal’s suit seeking tenancy rights has stated to the court that Sheetal has visited the bungalow just six times in the past 15 years and on most occasions only ended up fighting with her. Rajani’s reply states Sheetal has not been staying in the bungalow sine 1999 – a year before she married Atulya Mafatlal. “I say that my daughter would visit me only on rare occasions and that too for a few hours maybe, to have a cup of tea or a meal. However, even such visits are numbered about six in the last more than 15 years which usually ended up with her shouting at me and picking up fights with me and asking me for money and then within a couple of hours she would storm out of the house,” the reply reads.
“Part of the reason Poonam’s marriage collapsed is that she was so preoccupied with Sheetal barging into that bungalow that she barely spent any time in Jai Shroff’s bungalow,” says their friend of 20 years. We’d like to add here that we contacted Poonam for this story, but in vain.
A socialite who regularly bumped into Poonam Bhagat via the Juhu bling circuit does confirm that the research prescribed to the Bhagat sisters has reaped rewards somewhat. “The last time we met, Poonam mentioned to me that Jai’s house was not large enough to house her couture. Mind you, she was extremely warm and caring, but there was a dreamy detachment. And no one blamed her in the circles we were in.”
Poonam and Jai Shroff married in 2005 after Tina Ambani reportedly played cupid. “As the three of them left the Meswani’s (Nikhil and Hital, cousins to Mukesh and Anil Ambani) home in the elevator, Tina suggested that since both Poonam and Jay were headed to Bandra, Poonam should go in his car and her driver should follow. It wasn't love at first sight because all they discussed on the drive home was business,” cites a Times of India report.
The year they wed, Shroff bought shares in Poonam’s mother’s firm, Nirlon, and joined its board of directors. The 47th Annual Report of Nirlon Limited 2005-2006 notes this under the sub-heading “Appointment of Shri Jai Shroff as a Director”.
His alleged philandering led to many a public spectacle between the two. At the Rajasthan palace wedding of Sanjay Hinduja and Anu Mirchandani, while Jennifer Lopez entertained the guests with her hip-swinging, Poonam and Jai stole her thunder with their demonstrative contretemps.
A Juhu socialite is rather blasé about the poisoned chalice supposedly fed to Jai. “You think it’s just Poonam? Half of the Juhu housewives are feeding their husbands the ‘vishikaran’ potion. They all want to keep them at home, not in other women’s beds,” she coos. “It’s meant to save troubled marriages.”
How does this end? If it ends at all? Perhaps Aabad Ponda, lawyer to both Sheetal and Jai Shroff, may have the answer.
What we do know is Mumbai’s towering skyscrapers, its heritage bungalows, its families’ lineage, its glittering parties, its swish set are also its newest battlegrounds.
At the centre of the bitter dispute over a 20,000 square foot Bandra bungalow is Rajani Bhagat, the embattled 80-year- old matriarch of the Nirlon empire, and her two warring daughters, Poonam Bhagat and Sheetal Mafatlal.
Two scandals last week have brought into the spotlight a very troubled residence: 38 Pali Hill, a sprawling 20,000 square foot bungalow in Mumbai’s toniest neighbourhoods. This is the home where Poonam and Sheetal Bhagat grew up. The two sisters went on to respectively marry Jaidev Shroff (of the 2000-cr United Phosphorus) and Atulya Mafatlal (of the legendary textile family).
The two sisters have rocked Mumbai like no one before. Where they were once known for their obsession for dressing in Versace and lighting up Page 3 soirées, they are now controversy’s twins. Poonam Bhagat was recently accused by her husband of poisoning him. She has responded to the allegations, saying he physically and mentally abused her over the 11 years of marriage. Sheetal’s sagas with her husband and his family, and with her friends who she had accused of stealing her paintings worth crores, are the stuff of a saucy Gillian Flynn novel. It’s pertinent to mention here that Sheetal was arrested for not declaring her assets at the airport customs in 2009.
So how did the two Bandra girls rule Mumbai society and what eventually led to their fall from grace? The two are daughters of Manhar Bhagat, a respected businessman who headed the Nirlon empire, and Rajani, who hailed from a family of wealthy jewellers in Gujarat. Society doyennes of yore remember him as a dignified man of fine tastes, and her as a feisty woman, with a propensity towards belligerence.
Rajani and Manhar Bhagat's name also cropped up in 2001, when IPS officer turned politician Jaspal Singh, booked Rajani under the prevention of black marketing act for mixing solvents in petrol. Rajani was then the owner of Bombay Garage petrol pump in Ahmedabad. That said, Rajani has been known to file complaints of theft against guests who she had invited for dinner to her lavish home.
The two sisters are antipodal in personalities. The grist mills have it that a man is at the centre of it – Poonam was allegedly engaged to Atulya Mafatlal, until Sheetal and he clapped eyes on one another. The family broke up. The rest is luncheon chatter, even though Sheetal vehemently claims that this rumour was planted by her sister-in-law to malign her. Fast forward to the new millineium.
Sheetal marries Atulya in 2000. She launches herself as society’s most glamorous hostess, international celebrities are in her living room and on her speed dial. She wears only couture, drives a sports car, has Donatella Versace make her frocks, wears emeralds the size of ice-cubes. All that was missing was a diamond diadem, and she would have very well bought herself an island to crown herself queen.
Poonam Shroff finds love again. She first dated diamantier Devaunshi Mehta’s brother for years. And then falls for the much-married Shroff. She waits patiently for his marriage to end, and before she announces hers to him – how else, but on her handbag. She announces herself as one of the biggest art patrons in the country and buys more priceless art works than a national museum. She sponsors the Kochi Biennale, flies around in a private jet with liveried servants and her hairdresser as her entourage.
Then: both their marriages fall apart. In the midst of fighting their own private matrimonial battles, they also make time to fight each other in courts. Last week’s fracas being the latest, when Sheetal barged into Bandra’s Bhagat House with bouncers in tow, in a bid to stake her claim to her ancestral property. Rajani and Poonam, in turn, file a complaint against her. And we all wait with bated breath and hungry eyes to see how this will eventually play out.
This newspaper’s crime reporter, Nazia Sayed, was at the scene when Rajani filed a complaint against Sheetal. “Meri dono betiyan nikambi hain (both my daughters are useless),” she had told her then.
A fashion doyenne, who has known the Bhagat sisters for two decades, blames it on the mother’s obsession with money. “They are the product of their mother. The father was extremely gentle, but the mother always pitted one against the other,” she recalls. “Despite the rarefied circle we belonged to, they came from such unimaginable wealth, even by our standards. You can’t be normal with that sort of upbringing. Today it is money that has brought them such anguish and shame.”
When we had phoned Sheetal for an interview, a PR agent responded, “See, Sheetal would love to host you for an interview at her bungalow. But the fear is that if she comes to the gate to collect you, Poonam might push her out of the house, slam the gates shut and refuse to let her back in. So, would a telephonic be alright?”
Over the phone, Sheetal is relaxed and chatty. “I had a very close relationship with my father. Poonam was my mother’s favoured child. We had a very happy childhood when my grandparents were around. They were extremely glamorous and dignified.” So when did things go wrong with her sister? “We never had a relationship from as far back as I can remember. Two, three, five?”
A chronicler of society for over four decades adds: “The word I would use to describe Rajani would not be intelligent, it would not be sharp, it would be crafty. The daughters have picked up whatever traits they have from the mother. I think this is a story of avarice. A couple of hundred crores here and there is loose change for these types,” she avers. “Whatever said and done, those jewels that Sheetal wears are priceless, whether they are stolen, borrowed or embezzled. This is a story of bottomless greed.”
Money is a serious concern among the Bhagat matriarch and her daughters. In a letter dated 18 July 2011, addressed to Sheetal, Rajani wrote: “When you came down on me with so much viciousness you forgot, in time of need your mother stood by you physically, mentally and monetarily – totally thru Customs, Trips – One year 10 months spree in London and trip to St. Moritz/Paris/South of France/Las Palms without flinching [sic]. Since I see so much resentment I could adjust it against your dues!!? Even my goodwill gesture of giving 1/3rd of my shares was not appreciated. What mother am I? Mahatma Gandhi printer?”
“The girls were very well-educated,” says a former friend of theirs. “They were trained to be businesswomen, not housewives. When we were young they would come over often. They would tell me to read Forbes and Business Insider, so I would know all the rich boys.”
“That’s the life my mother gave me,” says Sheetal. “She taught me all this.”
A childhood friend of the sisters says they have an extraordinary appetite for legal battles. “Normal people get dented by bad press, court cases. Not these sisters. I’ve known them since I was a kid, and these girls can out-fight anybody.”
Does Sheetal suffer from fatigue – social, legal, mental? “It’s not a question of settling scores. Litigation is about establishing your right. What is your birth right, what God has given to you,” she adds. “Atulya’s family fights have nothing to do with me. It was his inheritance he was securing for his children, primarily his son. When Atulya’s father (patriarch Yogendra Mafatlal) died in 2005, his mother and his four, er, his three sisters, at that time ganged up together and wanted to get 50 per cent of the father’s estate. When they legally lost, Ajay-Aparna Mafatlal, whatever you call her, and the other sister Gayatri Jhaveri and her husband Priyam Jhaveri – they decided to create a campaign which was basically go-to-court, validate everything, and leak it to the media. It was a go-to-court-to-go-press campaign. It was a smear campaign,” Sheetal offers. “Besides, why would I give up my tenancy rights to the Bhagat bungalow?”
Rajani, in her reply to Sheetal’s suit seeking tenancy rights has stated to the court that Sheetal has visited the bungalow just six times in the past 15 years and on most occasions only ended up fighting with her. Rajani’s reply states Sheetal has not been staying in the bungalow sine 1999 – a year before she married Atulya Mafatlal. “I say that my daughter would visit me only on rare occasions and that too for a few hours maybe, to have a cup of tea or a meal. However, even such visits are numbered about six in the last more than 15 years which usually ended up with her shouting at me and picking up fights with me and asking me for money and then within a couple of hours she would storm out of the house,” the reply reads.
“Part of the reason Poonam’s marriage collapsed is that she was so preoccupied with Sheetal barging into that bungalow that she barely spent any time in Jai Shroff’s bungalow,” says their friend of 20 years. We’d like to add here that we contacted Poonam for this story, but in vain.
A socialite who regularly bumped into Poonam Bhagat via the Juhu bling circuit does confirm that the research prescribed to the Bhagat sisters has reaped rewards somewhat. “The last time we met, Poonam mentioned to me that Jai’s house was not large enough to house her couture. Mind you, she was extremely warm and caring, but there was a dreamy detachment. And no one blamed her in the circles we were in.”
Poonam and Jai Shroff married in 2005 after Tina Ambani reportedly played cupid. “As the three of them left the Meswani’s (Nikhil and Hital, cousins to Mukesh and Anil Ambani) home in the elevator, Tina suggested that since both Poonam and Jay were headed to Bandra, Poonam should go in his car and her driver should follow. It wasn't love at first sight because all they discussed on the drive home was business,” cites a Times of India report.
The year they wed, Shroff bought shares in Poonam’s mother’s firm, Nirlon, and joined its board of directors. The 47th Annual Report of Nirlon Limited 2005-2006 notes this under the sub-heading “Appointment of Shri Jai Shroff as a Director”.
His alleged philandering led to many a public spectacle between the two. At the Rajasthan palace wedding of Sanjay Hinduja and Anu Mirchandani, while Jennifer Lopez entertained the guests with her hip-swinging, Poonam and Jai stole her thunder with their demonstrative contretemps.
A Juhu socialite is rather blasé about the poisoned chalice supposedly fed to Jai. “You think it’s just Poonam? Half of the Juhu housewives are feeding their husbands the ‘vishikaran’ potion. They all want to keep them at home, not in other women’s beds,” she coos. “It’s meant to save troubled marriages.”
How does this end? If it ends at all? Perhaps Aabad Ponda, lawyer to both Sheetal and Jai Shroff, may have the answer.
What we do know is Mumbai’s towering skyscrapers, its heritage bungalows, its families’ lineage, its glittering parties, its swish set are also its newest battlegrounds.
