Page 37 - Seniorstoday February 2024 Issue

Meena Kumari was the poster girl for in the movie) and a more secure steadfast
love’s tragedy, both on screen and in
life. She married her love, director
Kamaal Amrohi, but it ended up being
an emotionally abusive relationship. She
was like a caged bird, her wings clipped,
her cries unheard. Alcohol may have
killed her, but her spirit wilted away long
before, yearning for the kind of love she
never received. Sure, she was loved by the
handsome Dharmendra and the wizard
poet Gulzar- they were soulmates in the
poetry they wrote from the depths of their
being. (Dharmendra also wrote beautiful
poetry- still does- for the later love of his
life, Hema Malini) But these loves were
not meant to walk the journey with the
melancholy Meena Kumari.
The next big love in Dharmendra’s life
was decades later, when he married Hema
Malini, despite being married and having
fathered 4 children with his wife Prakash.
The Raj Kapoor Nargis
love story rocked the
industry as well as
the foundations of the
Kapoor family, held
together by the quiet
dignity of Krishna
Kapoor. Immortalised
in the RK logo itself,
Nargis was the much married Raj Kapoor’s
muse and obsession for a long period of
time. They worked together in 18 films
over a decade and a half. Nargis apparently
even enjoyed the indulgence of a room
to herself within the hallowed portals of
RK Studios, the same as each of the male
Kapoors enjoyed. Post her relationship
with RK, (he staunchly refused to marry
her), Nargis went into depression. But
she met the young Sunil Dutt during the
making of Mother India (he played her son
SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #56 | FEBRUARY 2024
love blossomed in Nargis’s life again. Sunil
Dutt loved and cherished his wife for as
long as they remained married, until the
end of her life in 1981.
Raj Kapoor then had a flaming affair with
Vyjayanthimala, which caused even more
damage to his family, until he ended it in
order to win his family back, they had left
the family home.
Dilip Kumar was also said to have been
crazy about Vyjayanthimala, after he
ended his relationship with Madubala. But
he ended up marrying the much younger
Saira Banu in the sixties.
Image courtesy: Hindustan Times
Rajesh Khanna and Anju Mahendru
had a live-in relationship way back in
the sixties…but Anju, despite being a
perfect girlfriend /lover/ partner, felt
no compulsion to get married. Rajesh
Khannna was an outright chauvinist and
the free spirited Anju was often stifled…
they split, Rajesh Khanna married the very
young Dimple Kapadia, years later. Two
daughters later, they parted ways. Dimple
found love with Sunny Deol, and Rajesh
Khanna moved on to other women along
the way, both within the industry and
outside of.
The seventies fodder at the grist mills
was the best kept public secret- the
rumoured affair between superstar
Amitabh Bachchan and his sultry co-star
in many films - the dusky south Indian
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