Inside the Guptas’three-kitchen‘single family home’

In the middle of a leafy suburb of carefully manicured gardens (including at the residence of Atul Gupta’s mother next door) is a reverse oasis. The house, neighbours say, is nothing but a party venue for the Gupta family — and the only plants are restricted to a handful of tyres hung off a boundary wall and painted in bright primary colours.

The family says it was always intended for a single family to live in the behemoth of a house, ever since it was finished in 2010. “One of the sons,” lawyer for the family Patrick Mundell said on Wednesday. But nobody has ever moved in, or even spent the night.

In six years the house has served a purpose only once.

“On Diwali they used it to shoot fireworks, that’s all,” Mundell said.

The evidence of that party is still visible, in a box of Chinese-made “golden sparkler” fireworks and a box of much more ominously named “aerial bombs”.

Photographs were not permitted during an inspection visit by the city council this week, and by agreement among the parties the visit did not extend to parts plans say contain a jacuzzi, a home theatre and enough bedroom and living space to warrant 30 air-conditioning units.

The house has no garage; where such a structure would be expected is a generator room, a laundry and a “change room” for security guards. There is also surprisingly little natural light for a structure that features a tall glass dome as its only decoration.

Of everything else, though, there is a surfeit. Surveillance cameras inside and out overlook motion detectors. The three identical bars, one on each floor, are all well stocked — although one is heavier on the Johnnie Walker whisky. The ground-floor dining room has space for 16 people, four more than the slightly more tasteful version on the top floor. The roof, which is nothing but a roof, the family maintains, is ringed by a dozen lights.

The big numerical problem is in the three kitchens. For religious purposes, everyone agrees, the house is built under a planning scheme that allows for two interconnected kitchens for a one-family dwelling. But rich families that throw big parties need both kitchens and a little extra, the Guptas’ lawyer said.

“The current owners have religious requirements that require a separate kitchen for the preparation of meat and a separate vegetarian kitchen,” Mundell said. The third “is intended for snacks”.

There are also three monkey figurines arranged near the bottom of a spiralling staircase: one with its hands over its ears, the second with its hands over its eyes, and the third with its hands over its mouth. —