Vidhu Vinod Chopra handed over the keys of a Rolls Royce with much fanfare to his lead star of Eklavya, Amitabh Bachchan, thus adding to the numbers in the Bachchans' already overflowing stable.

It is said that Amitabh signed Eklavya, for a token fee of one rupee only but looking at the bigger picture it seems that it was ploy to save some income tax.

Actaully if Big B had charged a fee of Rs 3.5 crore for acting in a film, he would have been liable to pay 33.66 per cent tax on it, which would amount to almost Rs 1.2 crore.

In this case, even a Rolls Royce worth Rs 3.5 crore attracts no tax penalty since it had been given as a gift by Chopra.

But in a weird twist to the tale, we hear that the swanky car is back where it came from, its show-room.

When quizzed Big B says, "Vinod is going to gift a car to me and I'm very happy about it. But this Rolls Royce isn't the actual car that Vinod has gifted me. It was just a token gesture.My actual gift will only arrive later."

Some say this kind of desperate flamboyance is typical of Chopra. In trying to create a hype for his film around the Rolls Royce, he jumped the queue.

Did You Know?

• No, the Bachchan residence at Juhu, Jalsa, doesn't have garages. Anyway, they would need too many. So when you enter the main gate of Jalsa all you see first is a fleet of cars, all lovingly covered.

• Amitabh Bachchan is known to favour the number 11, because he feels it is lucky for him (his birthday is on the eleventh of October). Thus his car plate numbers usually add up to 11. NA 1190 (1+1+9-11) or CA 470.

• His driver has driven each and every car in the Bachchan stable.

• Both father and son are known to share cars.