Mumbai: Naseeruddin Shah celebrates his 69th birthday 20thJuly.
44 years ago, Naseeruddin made his film debut with ‘Nishant’. Though his role was small, he still earned mainstream admiration. After this, he did movies like ‘Aakrosh’, Sparsh, ‘ Manthan ‘, ‘We Five’, ‘ Chakra’ and ‘Umrao Jaan’.
In Hindi cinema, Naseeruddin has done more than 100 films so far and is still going strong. But how much do you know about his personal life?
According to a report, at the age of 20, Naseer married Manara Sikri, who was 15 years older to him. Manara was also known as Parveen Murad and was the sister of famous actress Surekha Sikri. When Nasir expressed his desire to marry Manara in front of his parents, he had to face their anger due to the age gap and Parveen was a divorcee with children from a previous marriage, living with her family in Iran.
Overcoming those obstacles, Naseer married Manara 1969. After one year of marriage, they had a daughter named Heeba Shah. Heeba was just one year old when due to a rift Naseer and Parveen parted their ways.
The couple got separated but did not file for divorce. Since Shah was not in a financial condition to provide the large sum of money in one go, it took him 12 years to sum up the money for Parveen’s alimony, and secure a divorce.
Meanwhile, Manara and her daughter shifted to Iran.
After separation, Naseer joined the National School of Drama for acting courses. He started his new life.
In 1975, Naseer met Ratna Pathak, Ratna was a college student at that time. Both of them met during a rehearsal of a drama. This was not a ‘love at first sight’ story. Ratna had once said in her interviews that, “After being friends for a few days, we went outside to spend time.”
Naseer and Ratna had a simple wedding in 1982. The couple has two sons Imaad and Vivaan.
Very few people know that Naseer and Pankaj Kapoor are close relatives in real life. Ratna and Supriya Pathak are sisters. Ratna married Naseer while Supriya married Pankaj. Pankaj and Naseer have worked together in 10 films till now.
Even after being too old, Naseer never hesitated doing bold scenes in films like ‘Dirty Picture’, ‘7 Khoon Maaf’, ‘Begum Jaan’ and ‘Dedh Ishqiya’.
Naseer has also worked in Pakistani films. His first Pakistani film was ‘Khuda Ke Liye’ in which he made a cameo appearance.
PNN/Agencies