Emraan Hashmi hides in the bathroom

The bathroom is the place to go if you're searching for Mr Hashmi, who lands up there every time his film releases! If Emraan Hashmi had his way he'd probably live in bathrooms. According to him, when he went to Kolkata to promote Kunal Deshmukh's Jannat, the milling crowd made such a commotion that he had to hide in the loo for half an hour.

Says Emraan, "Kunal, Mukesh Bhatt, Sonal Chauhan and I had gone to Kolkata when Jannat released on Friday. We hadn't expected such an opening in Kolkata because the home team, Kolkata Knight Riders was playing that night. Many people had told us we shouldn't release Jannat because of the IPL matches but we still went ahead.

We reached the Paradise (Bentinck Street, Espalanade) cinema hall at around 3 pm and went inside. By the time we got through with media interviews, a 1,000-strong crowd gathered outside the theatre. They had blocked the road and in their enthusiasm, even broken some of the windshields of the cars!" The panic-stricken exhibitor told Emraan to go and hide in the bathroom for half an hour till they called the cops.

Says Emraan, "Sonal went to hide in the ladies' loo. The security hadn't expected such a huge crowd. Finally the cops came and we had to run down the staircase, through the back door and into a narrow, dark alley.

The car we were to travel in was at the front gate but the exhibitor had earlier sent it off as a diversion so that the crowd would think we had left in that. I finally called up a friend and left on his bike, wearing a helmet." Emraan admits embarrassedly that hiding in the loo isn't new to him. "I have hidden in the loo many times. I have ended up in women's bathrooms in hotels abroad a number of times and got thrown out. I can't figure out the signs there."

After a screening of his previous flick, Awarapan, at Adlabs, Emraan Hashmi locked himself in a bathroom, waiting for all the guests to leave. The audience was very impressed with his performance and wanted to compliment him but nobody could find Emraan anywhere. Finally, his wife Parveen said he was hiding in the loo. He refused to come out till everyone had left.