Pre-Partition Bollywood hero lost everything after films started flopping, moved into a chawl and sold sea-facing bungalow; son became one of the GOATS

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In an interview with India Today, Govinda reflected on the hard times. “We never bought umbrellas. We thought the rain would only last four months, so why waste money?” He also recalled the humiliation that his family was subjected to because of unpaid bills and piling debts “The baniya used to make me stand for hours because he knew I wouldn’t pay for the goods. Once I refused to go to the shop anymore. My mother started crying and I cried with her,” he said. The money he received for the film Love 86 partly paid for the Rs 1.5 lakh that his family owed. With his next cheque, he bought a Maruti car. At his peak, Govinda was doing a dozen movies a year, and was charging Rs 1 crore per film. In an appearance on Simi Garewal’s talk show many years ago, Govinda spoke about how his family’s troubles shaped him. “He had made a film which didn’t work and he lost a lot of money. We had a bungalow at Carter Road, but after the film flopped, we had to move to Virar. That’s when the hard times began, and I was born. With failure, he was really shaken and he couldn’t take it and the entire family faced that difficulty,” Govinda said.

Govinda’s meteoric rise in the films – legend has it that he signed over 70 movies after his debut – mirrors that of his father. According to a 1942 article, “Various producers then knocked at his door and his next pictures were Ram Chander Thakur’s Civil Marriage and Zia Sarhadi’s Bhole Bhale.” But Mehboob Khan wouldn’t allow Aroon to work with other producers. “His polished, sincere and unaffected acting had paved his way to stardom. Variety, they say, is the spice of life and versatility is the spice of acting—and Aroon has already proved himself to be a versatile star by playing many roles so superbly,” the article gushed.

Actor Govinda with her mother Nirmala Devi and Jaya Bachchan, Kirron Kher. Express archive photo by RD Rai on 21.02.1992

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But Govinda’s relationship with his father was complicated. He addressed rumours that his father had abandoned the family after his birth, and said that the truth was more uncomfortable. His mother, Nirmala Devi, became a sadhu after he was born, and this affected Aroon deeply. “After my birth my mother became a saint, so they lived together under one roof though not as man and wife,” Govinda told India Today.

Things became so strained between them that Aroon refused to accept Govinda as a child. “So, for a year after I was born, my daddy did not take me in his lap, as he connected my birth with him losing his wife to becoming a sadhu. But over time, people would tell him how I was a khoobsurat kid and that I was a good boy and then, he started loving me. I was such a mama’s boy that no one imagined that I could come into the film line. She wanted me to do a bank job. It was my dad who encouraged me to come into films. He would say, ‘You can write so well, you look so nice, you can act, you should try in films. Why are you going around finding a job?’ So sometimes, without telling my mom, I would go to Rajshri Productions to see if I could get some work. Then one day, I requested mummy to allow me. She said, ‘No sharab, no cigarette. If you want to try for sometime, try, but I don’t want to see those things in life.'”

Usha Kiron, Aroon and Radhakrishan in Aulad. (Express archive photo)

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And Govinda lived up to the promise. He was the biggest male movie star of the 1990s, and continued working till the mid-2000s. But that’s when his career started declining. The issues that producers used to tolerate in his heyday suddenly weren’t tolerated anymore. His films started flopping, and he hasn’t done a movie since 2019. But he was always prepared for this. Just a year or two after joining the film industry, Govinda told ITMB that he was aware of the transient nature of fame and success, something that he learned after closely witnessing his father’s downfall. “I know already that this won’t last forever. Times change. My father was a top actor once upon a time. But he lost it all, and we moved from Mumbai to Virar. Now, we’re back in Mumbai,” he said. Aroon died in 1998.