Actress to move out of parents home to an apartment nearby
Subhash K Jha (DNA; June 2, 2015)

Alia Bhatt is now ready to move out of her protective parents’ home. She has bought her own place, just a stone’s throw away from her family home in Juhu, where she spent all her 23 years with her parents and sister Shaheen.

The home is being done up by her mom Soni Razdan with inputs from Soni’s father. An excited Alia says, “It’s all very new and unexplored for me. All my life, I’ve lived with my parents. Now I need my own place. I made sure I got a place very close to my parents’ home. You step out of my old home and you step into the new home.”

Soni’s father, 87, helped Alia design her new apartment. “My grandfather is an architect and still active professionally. I guess my mom and I have inherited our aesthetic sense from him. My nanaji and mom took care of all the details of my new home.”

The one most unhappy with her decision to get her own space is her dad Mahesh Bhatt. Laughs Alia indulgently, “He was like. ‘Why do you have to move out? Why do you need your own place when you’ve all the privacy that you need right here in this house?’ When I tried to convince him that I had to find my own place he insisted that there must be a room for him in my new home. I’ve tried to explain to him that I am just a breath away. But he is unconvinced. I guess dads will be dads.”

She intends to move into her place early next year. “There’s still a lot of work to be done in the new place. And honestly, I am not looking forward to leaving behind the home where I grew up.” And yes, Alia is not leaving alone. “My sister Shaheen is also moving in with me. I wouldn’t be able to sleep all alone in my new place.”