MUMBAI: Who doesn’t know Mumbai’s Carter Road area. It is a posh and happening area of the city buzzing with activity. During the 1950’s, the place had many bungalows owned by Parsis and Anglo Indian’s. The Film industry had yet to arrive in the place. However there were two bungalows that were owned by top film celebrities.

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One bungalow was Aashiyana owned by composer Naushad but this article is about the other bungalow named Aashirwad. It was a sea-facing two-storey bungalow, owned by an Anglo Indian family. While its original name was lost in history, the first celeb to have purchased it was Bharat Bhushan in the 1950s and started a trend of film personalities living in Carter Road area. 

Bharat Bhushan who was popular for his films like Baiju Bawra, Mirza Ghalib, Gateway of India, and Barsaat Ki Raat, started having one flop after another by the end of the decade. He went into great debt and let go of the bungalow. Soon rumors started floating that the house was cursed or haunted.

The bungalow was now available for a meagre amount of Rs 60000 and actor Rajendra Kumar came to know about it. He signed a three-film deal with BR Chopra to get the money for the bungalow and soon moved into it and also named it Dimple after his daughter. Manoj Kumar advised him to do a Puja to ward off any bad omen in the house and it initially woked where he got many hits and came to be known as Jubilee Kumar, soon his films began flopping badly and he was forced to sell the house due to heavy debt. 

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In the 70’s Rajesh Khanna bought the house, named it Aashirwad, and started delivering hit after hit and became a screen idol. However his downfall was written pretty soon too. His films stopped working and he was out of projects. His wife Dimple left him and took their kids with her. He however started at the bungalow till his death.

In 2014, the bungalow was sold to an industrialist for a staggering sum of Rs 90 crores. 

In 2016, the latter demolished the bungalow to build a new property in its place.

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Credit-DNA