Divorce seems to be the flavor of the season. Just five months after her marriage to Nepali businessman Samrat Dahal, Manisha Koirala, the talented but quirky actress, made headlines again for all the wrong reasons. There was speculation that Mrs. Dil Se was on her way to splitville.
And again, the media circles are full of ex-actress Karisma Kapoor, who is all set to end her marriage to Delhi businessman Sanjay Kapur.
We go down memory lane and make a list of the marriages that didn’t last…
Guru Dutt – Geeta Dutt
He was a movie genius. She is a talented singer. She is an admirer of Bengali culture. She is Bengali by birth. It was natural for the two of them to fall in love and then get married. Marriage and two children later, the marriage hit a snag. Many say that Waheeda Rehman was the reason. Guru Dutt cast a dark southern belle, Waheeda Rehman in Pyasa and the rest, they say, is history. The director was completely smitten by this delicate beauty… although, Waheeda maintains to this day, the ambers were one-sided.
The one-sided romance, box office flops (Kaagaz ke Phool & Pyaasa, both were his love labors), and horrible lifestyle (drinking, smoking, and an eccentric streak) led to the end and end of his married life. At the time of his death, he was estranged from his wife Geeta Dutt and Waheeda Rehman had estranged from him.
Vinod Khanna – Geetanjali
Vinod Khaana is among the most handsome men Hindi movies have ever seen: dark, tall, broad-shouldered and strong. Although he started out as a villain in movies, producers and directors soon realized that he had acting material. In fact, competing against Amitabh Bachchan for much of his career, he was a darling of the critics as much as the masses adored Bachchan.
In the early ’70s, even as he was still establishing his career, Khaana married his college sweetheart, Geetanjali, and within two years the two were the proud parents of two boys, Rahul and Akshaye. But around 1975, Khanna became a disciple of acharya Rajneesh and then in the early 1980s he moved to Rajneeshpuram in the US for four years washing dishes and working as Osho’s gardener.
Although he was in contact with his family by phone from the US, the separation affected his beautiful wife and resulted in a divorce. Vinod is now married to Kavita Khanna, a lawyer by profession, and has a son and a daughter.
Zeenat Aman – Mazhar Khan
There’s just something about beautiful, smart, super-sexy women, particularly in the 70s era. Zeenat Aman was a spell-bearer for this brigade. He had a beautiful body that she never shied away from showing off. She had a mind of her own and she never thought to let it know. Unfortunately, she was always attracted to men who were handsome and famous and never ever able to respect a woman for being an independent person.
Zeenat dated (and married) Sanjay Khan and was publicly abused by Sanjay and his first wife, Zarine Khan, in a hotel in Mumbai. The lady was also rumored to have had a falling out with Pakistani cricketer Imran Khan, but nothing concrete really came of it. In the early ’80s, Zeenat finally settled down with small-time actor Mazhar Khan, by whom she has two children.
But this marriage was also very stressed, as Mazhar and his family beat Zeenat at home. Zeenat claimed that he was joined in the beating session by his eldest son, who had been brainwashed by his in-laws.
The marriage ended with Mazhar Khan dying of alcoholism in 1998.
Dimple Kapadia – Rajesh Khanna
He really was the only superstar the country has ever known. Rajesh Khanna broke many hearts when he married ‘Bobby beauty’ Dimple Kapadia. He couldn’t have been a better match: she, a 16-year-old with wonderful eyes, relishing success for the first time in her life, and he, a superstar eager to establish himself.
Not many know the exact reason why the two broke up. Speculation attributed it to Rajesh Khanna’s sudden fall from stardom. A series of failures in his careers played a large part in the separation of the two.
Although they were not actually divorced, the separation did occur. Over time, however, the bitterness wears off. Today, they are the proud parents of Twinkle Khanna (married to superstar Akshay Kumar) and Rinke Khanaa (married to Samit Saran).
Rekha – Mukesh Agarwal
Sometimes a love is the only love. That could very well be said of the perennial Rekha. Born Bhanupriya Ganesan, the illegitimate daughter of southern morning idol, Shivaji Ganesan, when Rekha made an entry in Hindi films she was a nasty ugly little duck, though the star power was still there to be seen. Over time, she metamorphosed into a beautiful dark beauty, slender as a swan. Many insist that it was after she came into contact with one Mr. Bachchan.
Reams of paper have been printed speculating on the exact twists and turns of this triangle. If the palpable passion in their films is to be believed, the chemistry between the two was electrifying. But the marriage was not to be.
Rekha was rumored to have married Vinod Mehra, but that was speculation. She definitely married businessman, Mukesh Aggarwal, but the marriage just didn’t work out for Rekha and her husband, utterly disappointed, hanged himself to death.
Randhir Kapoor – Babita
He was the descendant of Kapoor khandan and she a future actress. Randhir Kapoor and Babita did several movies together before deciding to get married. It is said that the first years were rosy, but the tensions began to show soon. It is speculated that Babita, the first cousin of the famous actress Sadhna, could not cope with the super stardom of the Kapoors and left the marriage with her two daughters in tow. Although Randhir Kapoor and Babita never got divorced, they also never stayed together.
Rakhee-Gulzar
She was a fragile Bengali beauty like no one had ever seen. He was a talented lyricist and director the likes of which Bollywood would not see for a long, long time. Love blossomed but the marriage could not be sustained. He was known to be violent while she was a bit neurotic, according to reports.
Reena Roy – Mohsin Khan
’70s star Reena Roy fell absolutely smitten with Pakistani cricketer Mohsin Khan. So was her handsome cricket lover of hers who would fly to London especially to meet her. The two got married in 1983 only to soon break up. It was a pain-filled divorce that saw Mohsin win custody of his daughter. Much later, when Mohsin remarried, he relinquished the right to his daughter. Today, Reena Roy lives in Mumbai with her daughter, now renamed Sanam.
Sanjay Dutt – Rhea Pillai
Sanjay Dutt was the last casanova of Bollywood dating actresses like Tina Munim, star Richa Sharma, Madhuri Dixit, Lisa Ray, Rhea Pillai, Nadia Durrani (based in London) and finally settled with Manyata.
It is rumored that while Sanju baba had a maddening affair with Madhuri, he actually married three women, first his wife Richa Sharma, who died early in their marriage; then Rhea Pillai, who stood by him during his crazy days in prison. Unfortunately, it was a love that could not see a bright future. While adversity brought them closer, good times couldn’t keep them together. While nothing really went wrong, so to speak, they just walked away…
The marriage ended in 2005. Sanjay is now married to Manyataa.
Saif-Amrita
Here was another star couple who just couldn’t do it. When the two met in 1991, Amrita was a successful actress and he was only just getting started. But the love and marriage blossomed from the evident result. But the marriage was not easy. Saif’s parents did not approve of the match; so the two got married in secret. Of course, later the parents arrived. What is even more amazing is that the two stayed married for almost 13 years and had two children, Sara and Ibrahim together. But a stormy relationship had to happen when a decision had to be made.
It would be safe to assume that Amrita was stuck in a happy (or read mundane) marriage while Saif was slowly on the mend and found the relationship to range from boring to stifling. In time, Saif’s name would be joined by pretty faces like Riya Sen, Smriti Mishra and Preity Zinta. Things changed completely when Saif puts in Roza.
Soon, it was splitville for the two when they finally divorced in 2004.
Nandita Das – Saumya Sen
The feisty and fearless actress has now seen two divorces, although the second is more talked about. Saumya Sen, an advertising executive, married Nandita in 2002 and they remained married for seven years. But in 2009, Nandita ended the marriage citing an irreconcilable difference.
However, she recovered and is now married for the third time, this time to environmental businessman Subodh Maskara and has a four-month-old son with him named Vihaan.
Likewise, Hollywood has seen its own list of failed marriages: Eva Parker-Tony Parker;
Sandra Bullock as Jesse James; Jennifer Aniston-Brad Pitt; Kate Winslet-Sam Mendes;
Britney Spears-Kevin Federline; Imran Khan – Jemima Goldsmith and Rihanna – Chris Brown.