Strangely, there was a common strain in all the recent celebrity utterances.

Shatrughan Sinha, who’d two-timed or multi-timed his wife in his prime, talked about how it wasn’t an easy road to tread. “When you’re staring at one, you feel guilty about the other who’s staring at the walls at home. When you’re home staring at your wife, you feel guilty and wonder, is the other lady a toy to be played with?”

Revelling in her marriage, daughter Sonakshi announced, “Khamosh, there’s no question of my Zaheer straying from the fold. With a long pause in our respective careers, we make sure we’re always staring at each other.”

Armed with the experience of his 33-year marriage to Gauri, Shah Rukh Khan shared his wisdom. “When you’ve run out of things to say to each other, as Gauri and I have, what keeps our marriage going is sheer ‘staredom’. We stare at each other for hours on end.”

Zarina Wahab was trolled when she confessed, “I was always aware of my husband’s relationships. But infidelity was fine as long as he came home and stared at me for long hours.”

Raj Babbar’s daughter Juhi, who knew about her father’s marriage to Smita Patil, gave me a scoop. She disclosed, “When I was seven years old, Papa told me all about how he stared and stared at Smitaji.”

Abhishek Bachchan let slip that with Aishwarya-Aaradhya holding onto each other, there was little time to stand and stare at his beautiful wife. “Maybe that’s why the separation rumours,” he reflected, stroking his chubby stubble.

Ajay Devgn had the perfect prescription. “Kajol jabbers, I stare.”

Ranveer Singh learnt his lesson quickly. While he stared and stared at Deepika (voila, Dua came into their lives), he found that she’d stopped staring back at him because of his wardrobe. He did the next best thing and shed all his clothes. They’re back to staring at each other, happily ever after.

“We play doctor-doctor,” giggled Madhuri Dixit. “Since Dr Nene is at home, and our sons are in America, we stare and stare at each other.”

Would you believe that Katrina Kaif is such a late Lateef, she saw Uri only recently? She went into ‘Zara zara touch me, touch me’ mode and demanded, “How’s the josh?” Vicky Kaushal revealed, “I was so busy staring at her that I forgot all my josh.”

After becoming grandparents to five little ones, Hema Malini touched wood several times and exclaimed, “When Dharamji and I got married nearly 45 years ago, we never dreamt that we’d have such a large and loving family with so many beautiful grandchildren. Whenever Dharamji came over, he’d stare at me for long hours. When I reached home after Parliament, I too would stare at Dharamji. Such a handsome man.”

“True, I spent more hours staring at my wife than on my wicket. But I also stared at the Aussie youngster on the field. Isn’t that enough to prove I’ve still got my aggro?” growled Virat Kohli.

“That’s why I’ve pruned my work...,” said Anushka who almost went poetic in her placatory statement. “We’re moving to London where we can stare without a care about the media glare.”

Hrithik Roshan, who celebrated 25 years of Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai at Virat Kohli’s One8 Commune, went from table to table spending quality time with journos, and looked amazed. “People often ask me why I do such few films,” he mused. “But don’t they realise that I need time to stare at Saba? Before that I spent 14 years staring at Susanne. That’s how we have Hrehaan and Hridaan, the loves of my life.”

Before long, Gautam Gambhir and Rohit Sharma shared the same wail. “Hey, what’s BCCI up to? Just because we failed with guest New Zealand and host Australia, how can they put new clauses on how long we can stare at our wives during matches?”

I confess. For the first time in my career, all the above quotes were sent to me from the top office at L&T.