It’s easy to walk past house No. 18 on Nandidurga Road without a second look. The nondescript, single-storey building with its peeling grey paint has nothing in common with the palatial Mannat , actor Shah Rukh Khan’s Bandra residence in Mumbai. But it is this grey building with which the Bollywood star’s childhood memories of his grandparents are associated.
Tucked away amid bungalows and commercial complexes, the building bears the name plate of Iftekhar Ahmed, Shah Rukh Khan’s maternal grandfather.
Iftekhar Ahmed, who hailed from Hyderabad, retired as the engineer-in-chief of the Public Works Department, Karnataka, on September 25, 1972. He died the same day after a cardiac arrest, family sources said.
Shah Rukh Khan spent his childhood in this house which occupies a modest 50 ft by 80 ft plot of land. “I was adopted by my grandparents when my parents were working hard to make ends meet. So I spent the first five to six years of my life in Bengaluru,” he said during an interaction at the alumni meet of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, on Friday.
The actor recounted his memories of the city he once called home. “I have plans to rebuild my grandfather’s house on Nandidurga Road and stay here for sometime with my children,” he said.
The house, which was one of the first buildings to come up in the locality, was allotted to Iftekhar Ahmed by the City Improvement Trust Board (CITB), precursor to the Bangalore Development Authority, in the early 1960s.
It is currently unoccupied, but until recently, it was home to Shah Rukh Khan’s maternal uncle, Salim Ahmed and his family. Mr. Salim, who moved to a flat in Frazer Town, told The Hindu that the actor was investing and redeveloping the family property. “That’s why we moved out of the house last year,” he said.
“Whenever he visits the city, he stays in a hotel due to security reasons, but makes it a point to meet us. Even when we meet, around eight security men are around him and there is no privacy,” he lamented.
