Pooja Bedi got engaged to her boyfriend Maneck Contractor on this Valentine’s Day
Debarati Sen (BOMBAY TIMES; February 22, 2019)

Pooja Bedi is excited about entering a new phase in her life. The actress-columnist is all set to get married to her boyfriend, Maneck Contractor. Pooja says that Maneck took her on a hot-air balloon ride on Valentine’s Day, and went down on his knee to pop the question. The couple is planning a wedding later this year, after they align the dates of her daughter’s (Aalia Furniturewalla) shooting schedule and her son’s (Omar Ebrahim) college holidays. In a quick chat with BT, Pooja talks about how she met Maneck, and why she believes in fairy tales even more now. Excerpts…

Let’s go back to the beginning. When and how did you and Maneck first meet?
Actually, Maneck and I have known each other since our boarding-school days. He was three years my senior. Though we weren’t that familiar with each other back then, we’ve always had common friends. Last year, he posted about his new venture in Goa on a chat group, and I went there to review it. That was how we reconnected.

You got divorced (from Farhan Furniturewalla) in 2003. Since then, it has taken you over 15 years to find Mr Right...
Every time you are in a relationship, you hope that this is the one. However, when you meet the person you are destined to be with, you don’t hope, you just know that he is the one. The beauty of our relationship is that it has been effortless in every way. Our families have merged beautifully. He has a wonderful open-hearted, jovial, Parsi family, who welcomed me. My kids, too, adore him. He is extraordinarily kind and cooks up a storm in the kitchen, which is an incredibly sexy quality (laughs!).

You said that your children — Aalia and Omar Ebrahim — adore Maneck. Have they been waiting for you to settle down for a while?
I got divorced on February 14, 2003, and got engaged on February 14, 2019. I have had relationships in between and my kids have liked every person that I have been with. But it is very different with Maneck — they adore him and want him in our lives forever, which is a wonderful feeling as a single parent. They are happy that I am settling down finally. They have wanted this for me for the longest time. It’s a wonderful phase — my son is studying abroad, my daughter is entering films and the empty nest syndrome that a lot of mothers face has been filled beautifully by this relationship and my journey ahead with Maneck.

Tell us about your wedding plans...
Our wedding will take place later this year, when we align dates of Aalia’s shoot and my son’s college holidays.

DNA (October 6, 2018)

She’s got spunk. Meet Alaia F, Pooja Bedi’s daughter, a social media sensation. If sources are to be believed, a couple of filmmakers are planning to launch her.

Says an industry source, “Alaia F has been preparing to be an actor since the age of 16. She has inherited her mom Pooja’s striking looks and seems to have what it takes to make it big.’’

The source adds, “Apart from studying filmmaking and acting in New York, Alaia has also been attending performance workshops with two coaches. She is training in Kathak and Hip Hop and is taking voice modulation classes, too, so that she is well prepared for Bollywood.”

Reports suggest that the youngster has also been shortlisted as the face of a leading fashion brand. Looks like Bollywood is about to welcome another star daughter shortly.

With Instagram accounts that are attracting thousands of followers, star kids are enjoying a popularity that even rivals that of their parents.
Mohini Chaudhuri (MUMBAI MIRROR; November 8, 2015)

On one of her recent visits to Mumbai, Aalia Furniturewala, daughter of film and TV personality Pooja Bedi, invited a handful of her social media followers for a meet and greet at a coffee shop. Her mother wasn't in town at the time, but a video of what transpired that day took her by surprise. "There were screaming fans, and people crying and asking for autographs. She was really taken aback. It was quite insane," says Bedi. Such hysteria is indeed jaw-dropping. Aalia is a few weeks away from her 18th birthday and still a student at New York University. Her fans are her over 60,000 Instagram followers who are in awe of her seemingly perfect life, and who also seem partly envious. Pictures of her partying with college friends and hanging out with other celebrity kids are often met with comments like 'F*** man. Look at my life', followed by a sad emoticon. "She's gathered a lot of popularity for her attitude and for the kind of thought processes she has. Youngsters love the advice she gives and how she views life," explains Bedi.

Aalia is one of the many adolescents who has drummed up a robust social media fan following, one that can rival that of a bona fide celebrity. Other junior stars riding high on the popularity scale are Ibrahim Khan (Saif Ali Khan's son), Khushi and Jhanvi Kapoor (Sridevi's daughters), Aaliyah Kashyap (Anurag Kashyap's daughter) and Ahaan Panday (Deanne Panday's son). Even those who don't have personal accounts have a wide presence through fan pages and sites. Aryan Khan, Shah Rukh Khan's 18-year-old son, has numerous fan clubs that run unofficial Twitter and Instagram accounts, some with as many as 70,000 followers. Each time a private photo of Aryan with his siblings or his close friends like Navya Naveli (Shweta Bachchan's daughter) is leaked, his female admirers are sent into a tizzy.

In August, popular film website bollywoodlife. com carried a post headlined, 'Sorry Shah Rukh Khan, but we can't help drooling over your son!' The story had a photo of a bare-chested Aryan at a beach, which was pasted adjacent to a similar picture of his superstar father flaunting his 6-pack abs. "It got so many shares and likes that we ourselves were stunned. Aryan had done even better than a SRK story," says Tushar Joshi, editor of bollywoodlife.com, adding that Aryan has since been on their radar. The story got further traction after it was retweeted by Shah Rukh Khan, who seemed to have taken the comparison in good humour.


The premature stardom thrust on these kids is no doubt a byproduct of being born to famous parents. Yet, it wouldn't be inaccurate to say some of them are stars in their own right. At just 14, Khushi Kapoor has everything a girl her age longs for — branded clothes, selfies with Ed Sheeran, and other star kids as friends. She has around 48,900 followers on Instagram and 2,000 followers on Twitter. She's also immensely popular on the social networking site ask. fm where her young admirers gush about her enviable long legs and slim waist, and quiz her for fashion and make-up advice.

A few of these trending Insta celebrities do, however, seem aware of the fact that the stardom and fame they have come to enjoy is a borrowed one. Actor Shahid Kapoor's brother, Ishaan Khattar, for instance, confides, "I don't really like being told that someone is my fan. If someone admires me or wants to be my friend, then that's great. That, I'm okay with. I'm in the limelight because of him (Shahid) and people are interested in his life. I guess that's how they know about me."

In a recent interview, actor Saif Ali Khan admitted he was wary of his son's strong social media presence. With 30.8 lakh followers, Ibrahim is quite a prolific Instagram and Dubsmash user. "People are interested in him today also because of his family and who his parents are. It's something he should be careful about. He now understands that he needs to be a bit reserved and be seen less," admitted Saif. A celebrity mother, who didn't want to be named, says she too was quite perplexed by the unwarranted fan following her young son has amassed on ask.fm. She recently discovered that young girls were writing him letters requesting a meeting. "I'm quite disturbed with all this attention he's getting. I want him to concentrate on his studies. I don't want all of this to go to his head," she says.



"In the West you have younger stars like Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber or One Direction who have an entire generation that tracks them. Even with the Kardashian sisters, the focus has shifted from Kim to the younger sisters — Kylie and Kendall Jenner. Over the past year, the same thing has been happening in India," explains Joshi. "Every youngster with a phone is on Instagram and Twitter and they are hungry for news on these star children, because they relate to them. They want to know what they are wearing, the food they eat and where they go. If one of them posts a picture with a hover board, every kid suddenly wants that," he adds.

With so much curiosity about them, the media too has trained its sights on these next gen stars. That's probably what led them to recently stumble upon a few risque photos of Krishna Shroff, daughter of actor Jackie Shroff. The images, which were a part of a photo shoot Krishna had done for a photographer friend, were discovered on her Instagram page a good month after she posted them, and promptly splashed across every website and publication. "If I was just some random girl who uploaded the picture I did, it wouldn't have gotten the same amount of attention," she confesses. The 22-year-old has a staggering 100K followers on Instagram, most of whom she suspects are fans of her brother Tiger Shroff.

One of the photos in question received as many as 9,537 likes and over 500 comments that went 'sexy hot baby' and 'killer cleavage'. The attention, she says, doesn't bother her, and it will not stop her from continuing to post pictures of her choice. As for her parents, they had a good laugh about the brouhaha made over the pictures. Actor Sanjay Kapoor, whose 16-year-old daughter Shanaya is a regular on social media, says he has ensured she exercises restraint on the Web. "I believe posting general pictures is fine, but at the same time both the kid and the parents should be careful of what exactly is being posted. The media too should be more responsible with them. Almost 90 per cent of international magazines would cover the face of a kid when spotted with the celebrity parents," says Kapoor.

Bedi says there have been a few upsetting incidents where she's had to get fake accounts of her daughter pulled down. But having said that, she doesn't see the sense in shielding her from the attention she's getting — good or bad. "If you're an attractive, intelligent and opinionated girl, you're bound to have a whole bunch of attention and comments coming your way. As a parent it is not my job to blinker my daughter but teach her coping skills to handle unwarranted reactions," she says. But is it too much, too soon? "At 17, it's a compliment to have such an enormous following. I say full power to her," says Bedi. (With inputs from Avinash Lohana)

Meena Iyer (BOMBAY TIMES; December 22, 2014)

Have had no interaction with complainant's daughter, so how can I be booked under POCSO Act, socialite asks cops
MUMBAI MIRROR (December 21, 2014)

Two days after this newspaper reported that actress-socialite Pooja Bedi had been booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act by the Oshiwara police in a case involving a pub fight between her 17-year-old daughter and the great granddaughter of late filmmaker Ramanand Sagar, Sakshi (Mom vs mom battle takes a nasty turn, MM, December 19), Bedi has said that she and her daughter have been victims of a "false case".

The pub brawl took place last month, and escalated into a feud between Bedi and the mother of Sagar's great granddaughter, and the two women filed counter-complaints.

While the Sagar scion has already been booked under POCSO by the Versova police following Bedi's complaint, the Oshiwara police last Thursday booked Bedi under the same sections, after the Sagar scion said Bedi's daughter and her friends had been "cyber bullying" her girl.

Bedi, however, told Mirror on Saturday that she has met with Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria, who has "assured her justice".

Saying the complainants haven't provided a single piece of evidence, Bedi told this newspaper: "I have had zero contact with her daughter. I have never met her, nor exchanged any SMS with her. How can the cops book me under Section 12 of the POCSO Act for 'unwelcome sexual remarks, emails or telephone calls'?"

Bedi's lawyer Rizwan Siddiquee said that his client being charged under POCSO Act was "abuse of power" and "belittling the essence of the Act meant to protect a child from any form of sexual abuse". "Bedi has never met the girl or had any type of interaction with her. She has only spoken to the mother after she called her up. When we approached the police station to register the complaint, cops were initially reluctant to register a case. It was only after we showed them evidence in the form of messages and emails, that a case was finally registered. But the current case has been registered with non-application of mind," Siddiquee said.

"When I filed my case, I submitted the SMS exchanges that my daughter and I had with the other party," Bedi said. "I gave them proof that they have been harassing us by putting out offensive posts against us on social media platform. I am shocked that the Oshiwara police didn't ask for the same evidence from the other party," Bedi said.

The actress added that the Sagar scion's complaint talks about her daughter's friends targeting the Sagar girl, then how come she and her daughter are being dragged into the mess. "Her complaint says that my daughter's friend bullied her daughter at a pub in November. She added that my daughter's friend abused her. Why is she attacking my daughter for what others have supposedly done to her girl?" Bedi asked.

Recounting the drama at the pub, Bedi said that the complainant demanded that her daughter reveal the name of her friend, which she refused. "The woman sent my daughter abusive messages till 4.30 am. My daughter told her not to use abusive language and gave my contact number to her. The next day, I received a message from her asking me to reveal the name of my daughter's friend, and I reverted saying keep us out of this. She then shot off hate messages against me, my daughter and our family. That's when I filed a police complaint," Bedi said.

The actress further said that Maria has told her he will probe as to how a first information report had been filed against her when she had no communication with the complainant's daughter. "Once it is proved that a false complaint had been filed, I will file another case against them," she said.

Meanwhile, the Oshiwara police hewed to the official line: Senior Inspector Subhash Vele from Oshiwara Police Station said, "We have registered an FIR and the matter is being investigated."