PARVEEN BABI & SALIM DURRANI
1973: The first ever cricketer to win the Arjuna Award, the outstanding player Salim Durrani, was a stunningly good-looking man, setting many a female heart racing with his charisma and style. Salim’s family, originally from Afghanistan, had moved to India during Partition, and settled in Junagadh. When almost in his forties, the handsome Salim had a fling with films and played leading man in the classic BR Ishara film Charitra, in 1973, which also starred the chic and beautiful Parveen Babi, serendipitously also from Junagadh. Rumour mills had the dashing lead couple immediately linked in an affair. Salim Durrani went blue in the face denying it, and has always maintained that there was never one, then or ever, except media-fanned. The film sank, and so did the stories of their non-existent affair.
