For Priyanshu Chatterjee, his house is very sacred — "somewhere I can breathe easier". And he likes it clean and functional.

You can tell it's a bachelor pad. The woman's touch is missing but actor Priyanshu Chatterjee has no plans in that direction.

Priyanshu Chatterjee
"No, nothing on the cards as yet," he says. "I think I'll need two more years to figure out who it is first," he says.

Meanwhile, the bachelor pad will remain just so.

Chatterjee moved into his own flat from a rented place a couple of years ago. Initially there were no intentions of having any furniture in the house. "I wanted to live in the space and figure out how I wanted to do it," he recalls.

"But parents being parents, they had other plans. They came all the way from Delhi and sat on my head for two months and said ‘now you're buying furniture'. I took them to the store and they picked up whatever they wanted and that was that!"

Mamma's boy? "I guess so, and they are coming back again for a month or two. As long as they're happy, I am happy!"

The wooden approach

The parental designers have gone with the basics, adopting a functional approach.

Wood, in varying shades of brown, predominates. From light beige to walnut to deep cocoa.
The walls are virgin white, with four miniatures providing some relief.

A Delhi-inspired seating unit, a television rack and a dining table stand in the living room that overlooks the greens.

The kitchen — and this is where the missing woman's touch is so apparent — is adequate but messy.

"There is a maid who comes and cooks," Chatterjee says. "I can put some eggs together and make chappatis if need be, but I don't enjoy it. Some people say it's therapeutic but I have never understood that!"

The master bedroom is again quite basic — a bed, wardrobes and aqua blue, checked curtains that add colour to the room.

The second bedroom houses yet another set of cupboards, along with the computer and a treadmill overlooking a building under construction.

"The gyms around are very nice but going there ends up being a social thing since you tend to meet a lot of filmi people and I am not into that."

"Also, I am hugely self-motivated. So, as soon as I wake up I have my nimbu pani and head for the treadmill. If I am feeling a little down, I have a bit of coffee to give me that extra boost."

No designer, thank you

For Chatterjee, his living space needs to be clean and basic. "I don't like too much tamasha," he adds.

"I would never get a designer to do up my place, not unless it's Mannat! (Shahrukh Khan's place). For me, my house is in a way very sacred. Somewhere I can breathe easier."

He confesses to spending a lot of time in front of his computer and television, with his mornings spent reading the newspaper and doing the crossword.

"I also listen to a lot of music, and am very fond of U2. I have all of their stuff including how the music got made and all," he adds with a glint in his eyes.