Mumbai: When he essayed the role of a hero on screen, enemies were ‘silenced’ and when he played the role of a villain, he was praised beyond words.
Shatrughan Sinha invented a new way of delivering dialogues in the Hindi film industry that presented his role in a truly unique fashion.
Shatrughan made his debut in 1969 with the film Sajan, starred in films like Kalicharan, Dostana, Shaan, Kranti, Naseeb and Kala Paththar. Not only for films, he was also in news for actress Reena Roy. Today, on Shatrughan’s birthday, let us turn some old pages of his life.
Shatrughan also known as Shotgun was born 9 December 1945.
Subhash Ghai’s film Kalicharan was a hit, starring Reena and Shatrughan in lead roles. Apart from the film, news of an affair between these two started buzzing in the corridors of the Hindi film industry.
Tales of Reena and Shatru’s love story started appearing in newspapers and magazines. It is said that both wanted to take their love to marriage, but luck had something else in store.
Once Reena went to London for work purposes and in the meantime Shatrughan married the former Miss India Poonam. Reena was shocked to hear this news and immediately returned to India and went straight to Shotgun’s house and asked him the reason for doing so.
Sinha’s book Anything But Khamosh: The Shatrughan Sinha Biography by Bharathi S Pradhan captures the 70-year-old’s life in an honest and unflattering manner.
One of the chapters in the book has Shotgun talking about his off-screen intimacy with Reena and how the relationship continued for a while even after his marriage with Poonam.
In an interview, Shatrughan confessed that he had a relationship with Reena even after marriage. At the same time, Poonam also said that she knew everything about her husband and Reena’s affair. But eventually everything went well. After marriage, Shatrughan had two sons Love, Kush and a daughter Sonakshi.
Apart from being a Member of Lok Sabha (2009–2014, 2014–2019) and Rajya Sabha twice, he was Union Cabinet Minister of Health and Family Welfare (January 2003 – May 2004) and Shipping (August 2004) in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. He was elected to 15th Lok Sabha in 2009.