MAHESH BABU & NAMRATA SHIRODKAR

IN THEIR FIRST EVER SHOOT TOGETHER, THE SOUTHERN SENSATION AND HIS GORGEOUS WIFE INVITE HELLO! INTO THEIR HOME AND LIVES

- NAYARE ALI

In a quiet Hyderabad bylane, tucked away in the plush locale of Jubilee Hills, is an imposing 15,000-sqft minimalist home. ‘Ghattamaneni’, reads the nameplate. This is the home of Mahesh Babu, a superstar of Telugu cinema, former actor and model Namrata Shirodkar, and their two children.

As you enter the private sanctum, you are immediately greeted with two large statues of Shirdi Saibaba and Ganesha. The man of the manor walks up to greet us with a warm smile. Dressed in an ice-candy orange sweatshirt accentuated with cream trousers, he’s in the midst of shooting for HELLO!. Namrata, perched on a high chair in a compact make-up room adjacent to the living space, looks up and greets us. She’s elegant in a Rohit Bal off-white creation. This is the couple’s first shoot together after nearly 18 years of marriage— an exclusive for HELLO!.

The two met on the set of Vamsi in 2000. “It was one of the biggest disasters,” Mahesh laughs. “But I met her, we fell in love on the sets and started seeing each other. We dated for five years before we got married, but we pretty much knew that this was serious after two years.”

Mahesh lights up as he speaks about Namrata, her faint voice wafting into the room in the background. She joins us a little later, and much to our amusement, she mock-recoils at the mention of Vamsi. “It is something we don’t talk about much!” she says. “Vamsi was a ‘no-film’, as we say. The only good thing about the film was that we met.”