Kamiya Jani Arrived by
Helicopter.
That Should Tell You
Everything.
Curly Tales just did the most audacious house tour in Indian content creator history — a 7.5-acre Pune mansion where Queen Elizabeth's Rolls-Royce is parked next to the Pope's Lincoln Continental and a Toblerone bar has the owner's name on it.
The Farah Khan Era Is Over. Kamiya Jani Just Changed the Game.
For years, Farah Khan was the undisputed queen of the Indian celebrity house tour. She walked through people's kitchens, peeked into wardrobes, and made "where do you sleep?" a viable TV question. Bollywood stars opened their doors, showed off their shoe collections, and the nation was satisfied.
Then Kamiya Jani of Curly Tales — India's No. 1 food and travel channel — said: hold my mango lassi. And she went to Pune.
Not just any Pune address. She went to Yohan Poonawalla's estate in Koregaon Park — a man who owns approximately 100 cars, one of which was used by the British monarch, and who has reportedly put the Poonawalla name on a customised Toblerone bar because, as his wife Michelle explained on camera, "he has an obsession with having the Poonawalla name everywhere." A man of vision.
And here's the detail that sets this apart from every other house tour ever made on Indian YouTube: Kamiya arrived by chopper. Not because the traffic was bad (though, Pune). Not because the property had no road access. But because when you are visiting a man whose estate is so large it essentially functions as a small principality, you land in it from the sky. The approach matters.
Inside Yohan Poonawalla's 7.5-Acre Koregaon Park Oasis: What Is This Place Actually Worth?
Let's establish the geography before we establish the numbers, because the numbers will need context to land properly.
What Kamiya noticed immediately — and what made the Curly Tales audience audibly gasp — was the greenery. In an era where Indian billionaires seem to compete on how much glass and steel they can stack vertically, Yohan Poonawalla sits in the middle of a genuine oasis. Trees everywhere. Grounds that look like they breathe. Michelle told Kamiya she refuses to cut trees, and the result is a home that feels less like a status symbol and more like an estate that time decided to leave alone.
The interiors? Palatial — but with what Kamiya described as an unexpectedly warm, homely feel. Michelle's explanation was elegant: when you choose things yourself, when objects are passed down through ancestors, the space carries a personal touch no interior designer can replicate. The woman has a point.
HMQ 001: The Number Plate That Links a Pune Garage to Buckingham Palace
Every house tour has a showstopper moment. On Farah Khan's show, it was usually a walk-in wardrobe or an imported sofa. On Curly Tales' Poonawalla episode, it was a number plate.
Specifically: HMQ 001. Her Majesty Queen 1.
The 1979 Rolls-Royce Phantom VI Limousine sitting in Yohan Poonawalla's Koregaon Park garage was built as a showpiece car by Rolls-Royce, then used by Queen Elizabeth II herself on state visits — including her royal tour of Sweden in 1983, where it wore the HMQ 001 plates and flew the royal standard from its front wings. It has since transported the then-Prince of Wales (now King Charles III) and has participated in platinum jubilee celebrations.
It is now parked in Pune, Maharashtra, India. Queen Elizabeth would probably have thoughts about this. Yohan is delighted.
"I felt honoured to be recognised, and especially appreciated the attention the Indian historic cars drew."
— Yohan Poonawalla, after being named Collector of the Year at the Geneva International Motor Show, DohaBut the Phantom VI is only the beginning. When Kamiya Jani walked through these garages — yes, garages, plural, because of course there are multiple — she was essentially walking through a museum of world history on wheels. Here are some highlights from what is now officially the most important parking lot in India:
Why Yohan Poonawalla Is Less Famous Than Mukesh Ambani — Despite Being Extraordinarily Wealthy
Here is the genuine puzzle that every viewer of the Curly Tales episode found themselves Googling at 11 PM: the Poonawalla family's estimated net worth is upwards of $27 billion. That is not a small number. That is a number that buys a lot of choppers and garage space. So why hasn't Yohan Poonawalla been on every TV show, in every magazine, trending every week?
The answer is, refreshingly, by choice.
Yohan Poonawalla does not do public. He doesn't court headlines. He doesn't buy cricket teams for the memes. He doesn't commission architects to build towers that can be seen from space. He lives in a 7.5-acre estate in Koregaon Park, collects historically significant cars with the methodical joy of someone who genuinely loves what they're doing, breeds champion racehorses at one of Asia's largest stud farms, and runs an industrial engineering group that exports to 46 countries.
He is, essentially, what old money looks like when it doesn't need your validation.
The Poonawalla family tree is important context here. Yohan is the son of Zavaray Poonawalla, who co-founded the Serum Institute of India in 1966 with his brother Cyrus Poonawalla. Cyrus's son is Adar Poonawalla — the Serum Institute CEO who became a household name during the COVID-19 pandemic for India's vaccine manufacturing drive. Yohan is Adar's older cousin. They manage separate branches of the family's empire but share the same legendary Poonawalla surname — the one that's apparently also on Yohan's Toblerone.
The Business Empire, Briefly Explained
Yohan chairs the Poonawalla Engineering Group, which includes Intervalve Poonawalla Ltd and El-O-Matic India — manufacturers of industrial valves and automation systems used in refineries, petrochemicals, cement, steel, pharma, and sugar industries. He is also Chairman of Poonawalla Financials (an NBFC), a Director of Poonawalla Stud Farms (Asia's largest thoroughbred horse breeding operation, with champion horses exported to the US, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, and Malaysia), and a shareholder in Serum Institute. The man runs an empire spanning engineering, finance, horse racing, real estate, and vintage car preservation. He went to Bishop's School in Pune, got his master's at Wadia College, and completed his MBA in the UK. He is, by any reasonable measure, one of the most diversified industrialists in India.
The reason you may not know this is that he finds all the above perfectly sufficient without a personal PR team.
Why Yohan Poonawalla Refuses to Do Business with Friends — And How He Fires People
One of the more unexpected moments of the Curly Tales episode came when Kamiya asked Yohan about his management style. The man who owns Queen Elizabeth's Rolls-Royce and a Toblerone bar bearing his name turns out to have genuinely blunt business principles.
He doesn't do business with friends. Full stop. His reasoning: when you mix money with friendship, one of them suffers — and usually it's the friendship. He keeps the two worlds cleanly separated, which, when you have a net worth north of billions, is also the kind of thing that keeps dinner parties uncomplicated.
On firing people: direct, when necessary, but not cruel. He advocates for practical groundwork over theoretical business education — his most quoted principle is that "there is no school in the world that can match the exposure and experience you gain doing practical groundwork, and all of us know that the tougher the conditions the better you are moulded." This from a man who inherited a substantial empire and then expanded it into sectors the family had never previously touched — hospitality, veterinary care, real estate, luxury asset curation.
Poonawalla Mansion vs Antilia: Which Is Bigger?
This is the question the internet always asks, so let's settle it properly.
| Detail | Yohan Poonawalla, Pune | Antilia (Ambani), Mumbai |
|---|---|---|
| Land Area | 7.5 acres (Koregaon Park) | ~4,500 sq ft plot (vertical) |
| Style | Heritage estate, green oasis, horizontal spread | 27-floor vertical tower |
| Floors | N/A — spreads outward | 27 floors |
| Cars | 100+ vehicles, multiple garages, royal fleet | Luxury fleet, 3 helipads |
| Helipads | Can land a chopper (Kamiya did) | 3 dedicated helipads |
| Vibe | "Old money doesn't need to prove anything" | "Yes, this is the tallest private home in the world, why do you ask" |
| Trees | Many. None cut. Michelle's rule. | Minimal. It's a skyscraper. |
| Owner's media presence | Deliberately minimal | Omnipresent |
Verdict: Antilia is bigger in steel-and-glass-and-height terms. The Koregaon Park estate is bigger in actual land area. They are fundamentally different philosophies about what wealth should look like. One says "I want to touch the clouds." The other says "I want enough trees that I can't see the road."
The Customised Toblerone Bar (We Cannot Move On Without This)
Michelle Poonawalla, entrepreneur, artist, and the only person in this household who has beaten Yohan in a car race (she outdrove him while they were studying in London, confirmed on camera), revealed the detail that had the Curly Tales comment section in absolute meltdown.
Yohan Poonawalla has customised Toblerone bars bearing the Poonawalla name.
This is not a metaphor. This is not satire. The man has put his family name on a chocolate bar because — in Michelle's words — "he obviously has an obsession with having the 'Poonawalla' name everywhere."
To recap the inventory: the Poonawalla name is on his car number plates (YZP), on his engineering group, on his stud farm, on his finance company, on his philanthropic foundation, and now on his triangular Swiss chocolate. The logical next step is presumably a Poonawalla-branded helicopter, which would make Kamiya's arrival very on-theme.
It is, if nothing else, a very committed personal branding strategy.
The Final Word
Why Curly Tales Just Did the Most Important House Tour in Indian YouTube History
Farah Khan showed you how Bollywood celebrities live. Curly Tales just showed you how India's genuinely old-money elite actually operates — green estates, royal cars parked casually in garages, a business philosophy built on separation of friendship and finance, horses that win races in Dubai, and a Toblerone that knows its surname. Kamiya Jani arrived by helicopter and earned every second of it. The real luxury, it turns out, is not how high your building is. It's whether your trees have been there longer than your net worth.
Where to See the Full Curly Tales x Yohan Poonawalla Episode
The full Stories From Bharat episode featuring Yohan and Michelle Poonawalla is live on the Curly Tales YouTube channel. The episode covers the full estate tour, the car collection (including HMQ 001), Michelle's design philosophy for their homes, Yohan's business principles, and — yes — the Toblerone. Watch it Below
