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In this let-it-all-out on social media era, there is no such thing as a secret. Celebrities seem to carry out their affairs quite openly, posting holiday photos with heart emojis. People, or rather consumers of gossip and celeb shenanigans, are seldom shocked. Private videos are routinely leaked, and nobody pays much attention, but there was a time when affairs were considered scandalous and read about avidly in fan magazines.
A random pick of a dozen scandals from the past, just a tip of the iceberg peeking out of a swamp of love, lust, deception and opportunism:
The biggest shocker at a time when the Hindi film industry was not called Bollywood, was when Devika Rani, the boss lady of Bombay Talkies, ran off with an actor called Najmul Hasan. Her husband and studio partner, Himansu Rai was understandably incensed. (The recent web series Jubilee fictionalised this chapter in movie history). Eventually, she was talked into returning, but Hasan’s career was buried. He migrated to Pakistan after Partition, did some forgettable films there, ending his life in obscurity.The marriage of the power couple never really recovered. The one who inadvertently benefited from the episode, was a lab assistant, Kumud Ganguly, better known as Ashok Kumar, who replaced Najmul Hasan in the film, Jeevan Naiya, and stepped on to the fast track to stardom.
Baburao Patel was the owner editor of Film India, and back then, there weren’t too many movie publications, so he had a kind of unchallenged power. He was also known to play favourites and also be extra snide to those he did not favour. A rumour flew around the industry that Shanta Apte, the actress known as “stormy petrel” was displeased by something Patel had written, barged into his office and hit him with a cane. Another nasty version of this story was that she chased him around his table with a chappal. Patel, of course, denied the incident; according to him, Apte demanded an apology for something he had written, he refused and she walked off in a huff. Whatever happened, it was supposedly the talk of the town for weeks.
Dilip Kumar had a long and happy marriage with Saira Banu, but was rumoured to have had a few romances before that (and one affair after, that was much gossiped about). In the early days of his career, he was reported to have fallen in love with Kamini Kaushal, who was already married, hence the scandal. Her brother, a military man, had allegedly stormed on to a set where the two were shooting, and threatened to kill them if they did not end the affair. They broke up after that incident, and it was said that a heartbroken Dilip Kumar got his ‘tragedy king’ image after that.
At a time when divorces were unheard of, Nalini Jaywant left her first husband, film director Virendra Desai. His control of her career was reportedly the cause of the rift; since he had left his wife to marry her, for some time, both of them had to face some kind of boycott. It was probably her popularity and the success of her films that allowed her to rise over this personal crisis as well as gossip of her affair with Ashok Kumar. She later married actor Prabhu Dayal and retired from films. She did return to do one film many years later, before giving up totally, and died a recluse.
Unusually bold for the times, Usha Kiran did not hide or deny her love for director Amiya Chakraborty, and since he was 16 years her senior and already married, it was quite a scandal. It was reported that Chakraborty’s wife met Usha Kiran and offered to step out of her husband’s way if that was what he wanted. Jolted by the encounter, the actress ended the relationship. Later she married Dr Manohar Kher and had, from all accounts, a happy married life.
Dev Anand fell in love with co-star Suraiya, which her strict grandmother, Badshah Begum, frowned upon, because of the obvious religious differences. They had to meet in secret and planned to elope to get married, but the grandmother succeeded in her plot to separate them. On the advice of his older brother Chetan Anand, Dev decided to concentrate on his career and end the difficult romantic drama after a tearful farewell. He went on to marry Kalpana Kartik, and had a few affairs on the side, but Suraiya quit films and stayed single till the end of her life.
Raj Kapoor was married to Raji and was the father of four children when he and Nargis fell in love. They worked together for years, she is the one on the famous RK logo with him, but at some point, she wanted to get married. He was unable or unwilling to leave his wife. The relationship was doomed to end. Then, a young co-star, Sunil Dutt, rescued Nargis from a fire on the set of Mother India, and ended up marrying her. They had a successful marriage till she died of cancer many years later.
Dilip Kumar and Madhubala were madly in love, in spite of her formidable father, Ataullah Khan. Matters came to a head, when she was cast as the female lead in BR Chopra’s Naya Daur. A shooting schedule had been fixed in Bhopal and her father refused to let her travel. Chopra took her to court, Dilip Kumar testified against her, and she lost the case. In the end, the film went on with Vyjayanthimala, but Madhubala was left devastated. She already had a heart condition and knowing her days were numbered, Kishore Kumar married her, leaving his wife Ruma Guha Thakutra, and they stayed together till she died at the tragically young age of 36.
By the 1980s, Indian society was a little less conservative, still when Dharmendra reportedly converted to Islam to to be able to marry Hema Malini, without divorcing his first wife and mother of four children, Prakash, there was an uproar, all the way up to Parliament. Somehow the two weathered the storm, but they also triggered off a spate of copycat marriages that ignored legal requirements.
Rajesh Khanna was in a long-term relationship with Anju Mahendru, when he jilted her overnight to marry the much younger Dimple Kapadia, who had done just one film, Bobby, and gave up a promising career to marry the superstar. Even the gossip mags could not have made up something so dramatic. The marriage did not last, however, Khanna took up with Tina Munim after her split with Sanjay Dutt, and Dimple had a long affair with Sunny Deol, which they never spoke about, but never denied either.
The Amitabh Bachchan-Rekha romance was tabloid fodder for years. But he was married to Jaya Bhaduri and the father of two kids. They never admitted to the affair, and were never seen together in public, at least not by themselves. But Rekha dreamily alluded to ‘him’ in her interviews. Eventually, she married Delhi businessman Mukesh Agarwal. The marriage was shortlived, because he died by suicide. The tabloids went to town over the tragedy, and all but blamed her for driving him to it. Rekha did the wisest thing—just refused to talk about it or dignify the rumours with a comment of any sort. Over time, they died down, as scuttlebutt often tends to.
It was a Bollywood cliche– married man having an affair with an actress. The Sanjay Khan-Zeenat Aman romance would have gone the predictable way, with a break-up, because Bollywood men seldom ended their marriages to be with their lady loves (though Sanjay Khan’s brother Feroz did leave his wife Sundari). But this one went the ugly way. The gossip mags were full of shocked reports of Khan and his wife Zarine assaulting Zeenat at a party in full view of other guests, leaving her with a damaged eye. That she recovered from the trauma and maintained her poise said a lot for her strength. The Khan marriage survived the scandal.
Shiney Ahuja’s career was on the upswing, he had talent and good looks. Then he was accused of rape by his maid, and arrested. The industry can get all righteous about the real or alleged misdemeanors of others. His career was finished even before the facts could be checked. His wife seemed to stand by him, and Mahesh Bhatt spoke up for him on a couple of occasions, but he just dropped out of the scene, and nobody bothered to keep track of where he landed.
