These days, the most happening place in Patuadi is the path. It’s a narrow, unpaved road that links Pataudi Palace, a heritage hotel and a venue for occasional film shoots, and the nearby Ashram Hari Mandir. And now that Julia Roberts is shooting for her Eat, Pray, Love, this seems the most vantage point to catch a glimpse of the Hollywood star—that’s if you are willing to pitch your tent here along with the thelawallahs, the crew members, the logistics organisers, the security guards armed with their walkie-talkies, and the scribes.

If it wasn’t for the nawab of Pataudi, cricketer Mansoor Ali Khan, most of us would probably never have heard of Pataudi, a small, dusty town in Haryana. As you drive from Delhi, past the glitzy high-rises in Gurgaon, Pataudi welcomes you with its dusty roads, buzzing flies, rickety Tempos, loitering cattle, and mom-and-pop stores.

A young man of 24 turns up at the gates of the Palace and is turned away. It’s his third failed attempt, he says. “I came here at five this morning. I want to see that famous actress,” says Nitesh. He didn’t know the name of the film, though.

Babbal does. “It-pra-lav,” she says, sitting at the counter of the kirana store she runs from her house.

Vishal, a 12-year-old, comes with some of his friends—all of them are in their school uniforms. For the last one week, Vishal has been faithfully making the rounds of the strip road, hoping to catch a glimpse of the actress of “It-pra-lav”. But Vishal knows more than just her name—“She has three children, two of them are boys.”

... contd.