Match Set Go!

TAKING CUE FROM OUR COVER STORY COUPLE, KAJOL-AJAY DEVGN, RAHUL GANGWANI PROFILES SOME STAR ROMANCES DOWN THE YEARS… THOSE THAT KICK-STARTED ON MOVIE SETS AND CULMINATED IN ENDURING MARRIAGES

- Rahul Gangwani

Love is a four-letter word that means everything and yet nothing. Our stars say, ‘I love you’ to their co-actors for perhaps 20 takes on an everyday basis and then go back to their normal lives, to their real partners. One reason most of them are married to film folks is that only an actor would be able to understand his better half romancing good-looking people for art’s sake. The stories of popular onscreen couples settling down in holy matrimony are as riveting as the fictions they enact. Did you know… that Dev Anand and Kalpana Kartik got married during a lunch break. That Sunil Dutt rescued Nargis from a raging fire. Shammi Kapoor and Geeta Bali got married in the wee hours in a local temple. Dharmendra and Hema Malini converted to get married.

Neetu Singh was Rishi Kapoor’s confidante before marriage. Ill-health, accidents, alleged link-ups… these and the other couples covered in this article beautifully survived whatever life threw at them, proving that love is all there is...

KALPANA KARTIK AND DEV ANAND

The poster prince of romance, who had women swooning at a mere glimpse of him, Dev Anand was hit by depression when his real-life romance with co-star Suraiya was arbitrarily clipped. Dev fell in love with Suraiya during the shooting of Vidya (1948). Apparently, Suraiya was drowning when Dev rescued her by risking his life. He proposed to her on the set of Jeet (1949) with a diamond ring. But her obstinate grandmother flung it off into the Arabian Sea. Interreligious marriage was something she wouldn’t entertain.