A day before leaving for South Africa for the IPL tournament, Shilpa Shetty made a sudden visit to the Golden Temple in Amritsar along with her parents, sis Shamita and fiance Raj Kundra.In fact, Amritsar saw a whole host of celebs descend on the city – literally, because a flight had been chartered specially by Shilpa’s friend Kiran Bawa and her dad GS Bawa, so that they could all visit the famous gurudwara.
There was Shakti Kapoor, Aditya Pancholi, Mukesh Rishi, Ekta Kapoor with her parents – Jeetendra and Shobha Kapoor, Prem Chopra, Anand Raj Anand, Jaspinder Narula, Monica Bedi, Abhijeet, Gurdeep and Arjun Punj, Hiten Paintal with his father Paintal, Poonam Dhillon and Anita, Pankaj and Niketan Dheer, among others.
The plane landed at Amritsar airport at 2 in the afternoon. Shilpa was dressed simply in a yellow salwar-kameez, and was accompanied by Raj. Shamita wore a pink suit, and walked alongside their parents Sunanda and Surender Shetty.
The airport was buzzing – a huge crowd was waiting to welcome the guests with garlands and flowers. A special police band played a merry tune. The party reached the gurudwara around 3.30 pm. Shilpa immediately covered her head with her duppatta. Inside the gurudwara, again, there was a huge crowd waiting for a glimpse of all the stars. “Just the fact that I’m here is wonderful. I’m happy that my entire family and friends from Bollywood are here with me to do the sewa too,” Shilpa said. Her mother added, “We actually wanted to do some sewa, but looking at the rush here, we couldn’t.” Shamita, protecting her mother from getting pushed around by the crowd, said, “It’s been a great experience, but the rush was maddening and it spoilt our mood.”
Bollywood’s ‘Golden’ effort
At the airport we saw Kiran welcoming the guests along with her father, GS Bawa. While everyone got busy with their luggage, TV actor Arjun Punj and his wife Gurdeep Kohli looked rather relaxed as they chatted with Hiten.
When we caught up with Arjun, he said, “It’s a great feeling. This is the first time that I have seen so many people from Bollywood come together and make an effort to do something different.” We also saw Jeetendra, along with his wife Shobha and daughter Ekta. Ekta was busy talking on the phone and when our cameraman tried to click her, she even tried to hide her face.
Playback singer Abhijeet, who had come with his wife said, “This is the first time I am here and it feels very good.” Monica Bedi looked rather demure in a white kurta and she said, “I just love coming to the Golden Temple... It refreshes my mind body and soul.”
Later, we asked Kiran why she had got so many celebs to the temple, and she told us, “We basically wanted to create an awareness amongst the people about doing sewa at the Golden Temple and so, we brought all our friends from Bollywood. It was my father's initiative. He organised this function and brought all his friends to do sewa.”
Much later, at the exit, we spotted Raj patiently waiting for Shilpa and her family to be escorted to the car. He said, “I loved the experience of coming here. This is my first time and that too with Shilpa and her family members – that made it all the more special. I hope and pray that my team wins the IPL this year too.”
When we asked him about his wedding plans he confessed, “Well, hopefully there will be some good news and you shall hear it from us very soon.” Immediately after the darshan, Shilpa left for the airport with Raj and her parents and sister, as did Ekta and Monica. The rest of the guests preferred to stay back for a day. There was also a party at a hotel in the evening.