Jackie Shroff has been an actor since the 1980s but one can safely say that even after he first tasted stardom in the 1980s, he wasn’t blinded by the glamour of Bollywood. After Jackie had a few hits under his belt in the 1980s, he continued to live in a chawl in Mumbai’sTeen Batti area as he grew up in the same chawl. With his continued success in the movies in those days, his neighbours and friends in the chawl gifted him a private washroom as the chawl only had common washrooms that were used by everyone.
Recalling the incident, Jackie told Filmfare, “I got this film, I didn’t have a cupboard. Cupboard came later, first the suit came. And when the cupboard came, the entire chawl had assembled to see the cupboard. It was that kind of place and time. I learnt the value of things there. There were three washrooms, and after I became an actor they gave me one washroom.”
Jackie Shroff shared that there were three washrooms for 30 people in the chawl and yet, they decided to gift him one so he didn’t have to stand in a queue. “There were 30 people and three washrooms. After I became an actor, producers and directors would come to meet me in that chawl. Whenever they had to use the washroom, they had to stand in line. The chawl people didn’t like it. So they told me, ‘You have become such a star. We don’t like it when you or your friends stand in queue to use the washroom. We are gifting you the washroom.’ I told them I didn’t need it and my friends didn’t have an issue standing in queue. But, they insisted. The washroom used to have a lock on it,” he shared.
Jackie shared that by this time, he was a movie star. “I remember my mom had put up the poser of Shiva Ka Insaaf.” This was his sixth film after Swami Dada, Hero, Andar Baahar, Yudh and Teri Meherbaniyan.
In another interview with Vickey Lalwani on his YouTube channel, Jackie recently shared that he wants to rent out the room where he grew up but the landlord of the chawl is not allowing him to do so. “I am trying, but they are not giving it back to me. He (The landlord) thinks that if he gives it to me then… I am like, ‘bro, I won’t run away with it’. This guy is not giving it to me. I told him that whatever money you are getting as rent of my old room… four people live there now, I told him that I will pay what those four people are paying. But he doesn’t want to,” he said.
