Shabana Azmi: If there was a prize for the most private person in Bollywood it'd have to go to Shabana Azmi. No one knows the real Shabana. The public face isn't a mask. It's the way this brilliant woman sees life. In all the years that I've 'known' her the only time I've seen Shabana drop her defence was when years ago her niece Tabu had accused Jackie Shroff of making a pass at her.

"Sick sick sick!" the visibly upset and protective aunt had exclaimed. Whether she was making a comment on the moral underbelly of the specific incident or on the way sexual mores prevail in Bollywood, I never got to know. With Shabana you never question, you just accept her persuasive words. For some domestic reasons Shabana always loved Tabu, though there was never much love lost between Tabu's elder sister Farah and Shabana.

Rekha: Doesn't feel the heat, nor the cold! That's right. Rekha doesn't use the air-conditioner. She believes heat and cold are a state of the mind. She has an inbuilt temperature control.

Jaya Bachchan: Apart from maintaining the most perfect home in Bollywood and looking after two of the biggest stars in Asia, Jaya is also the most meticulous phone person in the film industry. No message goes unnoticed. No call goes unreturned. Also, thanks to the Bachchans' ever-efficient secretary Rosy Singh, no friend's birthday goes unnoticed.

Urmila recalls how pleasantly surprised she was when she received a call from Jaya on her birthday. "I didn't know Abhishek's and my birthday were separated by just a day. Jaya ji pointed it out to me."

Abhishek Bachchan: On the sets he's wacky, wild and uncontrollable. But under the veneer of prankishness Abhishek is fiercely sensitive and a loyal friend. The only time he has ever been cross with me was when I made fun of one of his director-pals for making an unwatchable flop. For a couple of days he refused to speak to me.

"I've feelings too, you know," he admonished me later. "The director might not be as successful as some of your filmmaker friends. But he's my friend. And that's all that counts." Says a lot about Abhishek's sense of propriety and his undying loyalty to those whom he befriends.

Kareena Kapoor: Wild, untameable, unpredictable? Sure, she's all of that. But she's also got a golden heart, that gorgeous girl. I will never forget how she landed up at the airport to meet me for the first time. The visual of her running towards me across the airport exit clutching the most beautiful bouquet of roses I had ever seen will remain with me as one of those montages that pass through the mind when Yamaraj does his number.

Mercurial? Yes. But Kareena is one of her kind. She epitomizes mercurial womanhood. But when you see her in love the glow on her face and the confidence in her gait are a sight to behold. When it comes to love, Kareena becomes surprisingly submissive. None of the infamous Kapoor temper-tantrums. See Shahid and Kareena together... and you'll immediately know who's in-charge.