Sanjay Leela Bhansali's "rocking and star studded" 50th birthday bash

Three of Sanjay Leela Bhansali (SLB)’s heroines Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Deepika Padukone and Priyanka Chopra made their presence felt at Olive on Sunday night to bring in the filmmaker’s 50th birthday. But his fourth heroine Rani Mukherjee was conspicuous by her absence in the dazzling turnout of stars and filmmakers which included Rekha, Hrithik Roshan,Abhishek and Aishwarya Bachchan, Shatrughan Sinha, and a host of people who don’t show up for filmy dos. But it was Deepika who won SLB’s heart by driving for 5 hours from Wai outside Mumbai after her shooting for Chennai Express to be at the party at 11 pm before leaving for Wai again at 4 am to join Shah Rukh and Rohit Shetty’s unit. Shah Rukh sent a apology through Deepika for his inability to be at the party as he had to continue shooting even after Deepika had packed up for the day. “But Deepika more than made up for Shah Rukh’s presence. She was in her element mixing around and having herself a ball with Priyanka, SLB’s Mary Kom actress. Curiously both Deepika and Priyanka maintained a distance from Aishwarya,” says one of the guests at the party. Karan Johar showed with up another UTV’s Siddharth Roy Kapoor (who was without his wife Vidya Balan). And Farah Khan came with a cake which had the names of all of SLB’s films on it. Ram Leela cinematographer Ravi Varman showed up with his fractured arm in a cast. The surprise guests were singer Kavita Krishnamurthy who rarely makes an appearance anywhere and composer Ismail Durbar with whom SLB had a fall-out some time ago. At midnight when the party had to wrap up at Olive a select group of friends which included Abhishek and Aishwarya proceeded to Shrishti Behl’s residence to carry on the party. Says a guest, “It was a surprise party. SLB was told there would be no birthday party. He felt no one would have the time to come for it. In fact, he was not told about the party until 9 pm on Sunday night. His sister Bela and his company’s CEO Sandeep Singh had arranged everything. They had personally invited all the guests.”