His biography, ‘Sanjeev Kumar: The Actor We All Loved’, written by his nephew Uday Jariwala and Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta, has many examples of his love stories.
New Delhi: If you are in Mumbai and seeped into Bollywood, there is something about actors and their love stories. There are also some classic love stories featuring heartthrobs but with total zero ending. Sanjeev Kumar, popularly known as Haribhai, is one such hero. So I think it’s perfectly alright to talk about his love stories, examples of which are many in his biography, Sanjeev Kumar: The Actor We All Loved, written by his nephew Uday Jariwala and Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta.
Let me start with the chapter penned by Bollywood’s best reporter on film stars, Bharathi S. Pradhan. Sanjeev Kumar had told her about his love with Nutan and how the actress wrote many love letters to Kumar and was all set to break up her marriage. That’s just one of the numerous stories Pradhan had in her kitty. She was famous because among many scoops, her biggest was cracking the secret marriage of Dharmendra with Hema Malini and how Bollywood’s He-Man changed religions to become a Muslim to facilitate the wedding.
But we are discussing Kumar here. Pradhan says once Kumar was very upset with her and gave him cold vibes at Rajkamal Studio, where he was shooting a Ravi Tandon film. Kumar blamed Pradhan for writing a news report that he had proposed to Sulakshana Pandit. Kumar was surprised and laughed off the whole incident.
Pradhan writes in the book that she found Kumar as direct, simple and fun-loving, never heart-broken.
There were various phases (read three) of Kumar’s love life. He once told Bunny Reuben for Star & Style’s June 1973 issue: “Till the age of 26, I never touched a girl. The first time I first fell deeply and seriously in love, was around that time. I wanted more than anything to marry her. But she was a Muslim girl, If I was the youngest son of my mother, I would have said to hell with the world and married her.”
Kumar worked a lot with Muslim actresses like Kumkum and Nazima in his early days but there was intense speculation that the woman who stole his heart and expanded his world was Saira Bano. Sarosh Modi wrote about Kumar’s love life in the December 1982 issue of Stardust: “Every woman whom Sanjeev loved and yearned for, ditched him, leaving him high and dry. His ego is terribly hurt. Sanjeev is suffering from some kind of a complex. Luck has never been in his favour. He loved them all. Saira, Nutan and Hema. Maybe with Saira, it was just infatuation and he misunderstood her.”
And then there was the mother of all love affairs, the one Kumar had with Hema Malini. It was around the time when Ramesh Sippy had completed Andaz, his first film in 1971 and was looking to make a new version of the superhit film Ram Aur Shyam (1967), focusing on identical female twins. The Dilip Kumar-starrer was based on the English film The Corsican Brothers (1941). Hema Malini walked into the lead role of the film, Seeta Aur Geeta. It was the story of twin sisters. Actors to play the twins’ love interests were finalised after Dharmendra and Sanjeev Kumar agreed to play the parts. The movie was a great hit.
Kumar was in love once again. But then there were many issues haunting him. Jeetendra wanted to marry Hema, so did Dharmendra. Eventually, Hema married Dharmendra on 2 May 1980. Kumar was crestfallen, shattered.
Every time Kumar saw Hema with some other actor, he would fall into a depression. One such incident happened when Rajesh Khanna walked into an auditorium holding Hema’s hands. Kumar just could not bear it.
But then, Kumar, after 1975, was both rich and successful and lived his life king size. He had ten releases in 1975, out of which Aandhi, Mausam and Sholay, had career-defining performances by him. He belonged to the school of natural acting, as described by A.K. Hangal in the book. Hangal said Kumar would “understand the character sketch very well and he would delve upon the arc of every character; their evolution in the story; the nuances of their behaviour and their manner in which their situation could be best conveyed, were important to his study and preparation”.
Shatrughan Sinha, who shared his wedding anniversary with Kumar’s birthday, said celebrations every year would happen at Sun n Sand hotel in Mumbai. Sinha totally disapproves of Kumar’s drinking habits: “As for Sanjeev Bhai’s drinking, let’s not forget that many people drink. I know a lot of people who used to drink even more than he did! His health problem was genetic.”
Writes Bharathi Pradhan in the book: “The best way to illustrate Sanjeev Kumar’s courageous choices would be to look at the ease with which he played Jaya Bhaduri’s husband in Koshish, her parent in Parichay and her father in law in Sholay. Those were times when actors played safe, and didn’t tamper with their hero image. I would say this was what set him apart from the rest.”
B.R. Chopra and Yash Chopra dropped Kumar from Aadmi Aur Insaan (1969), but soon realised their mistake and cast him in films like Silsila (1981), Sawaal (1982), Trishul (1978) and Pati Patni Aur Woh (1978).
Anju Mahendru, the actress who shot into fame after she was proposed to by Caribbean cricket star Gary Sobers, says Kumar would always share his girlfriend’s phone numbers with Mahendru, who would save it as 1,2,3,4.
Mahendru remembered the days when Aandhi was being shot. “He evolved with time. During Aandhi, he met the very sagacious, sophisticated and self-assured Suchitra Sen. She was the antithesis of everything Hari was—he was a simple, quiet man who would put others first. He used to flow with the tide. But Suchitra Sen epitomised confidence. She impacted him greatly and they formed a deep friendship. He had never met any co-star as mature and infused with self-worth as she was. In her company, he too came of age and became more independent-minded and capable of taking care of himself.”
Yet, Kumar died as a single man.