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Kishore Kumar said he was ‘never in love’ with Madhubala: ‘Doctors told her you can’t have sex, children’
Madhubala married Kishore Kumar soon after her break up with Dilip Kumar. However, she was quite sick at the time, and Kishore said that he only stayed married to her because he had given her his word.
Kishore Kumar and Madhubala stayed married for nine years, until her passing in 1969. (Photo: Express Archives)
Actors Madhubala and Dilip Kumar were deeply in love with each other until her father created a wedge between them and they eventually parted ways. A couple of years later, she married singer Kishore Kumar and they stayed together until her passing in 1969. Their marriage came as a shock to many, as no one really knew about their brewing romance. Madhubala got increasingly sick as time went on, and it has been said that Kishore left her at her father’s house when she was coping with ill health.
In an earlier interview with The Illustrated Weekly of India, he said that he knew that Madhubala was “very sick” when he married her, but he was committed to the promise he’d made to her when they got married. He said that he watched her “die before my own eyes” and he was told by the doctor to “humour her all the time.”
He shared, “I knew she was very sick even before I married her. But a promise is a promise. So I kept my word and brought her home as my wife, even though I knew she was dying from a congenital heart problem. For nine long years, I nursed her. I watched her die before my own eyes. You can never understand what this means until you live through this yourself. She was such a beautiful woman and she died so painfully. She would rave and rant and scream in frustration. How can such an active person spend nine long years bed-ridden? And I had to humour her all the time. That’s what the doctor asked me to. That’s what I did till her very last breath. I would laugh with her. I would cry with her.”
However, in another interview with Filmfare, Kishore said that he was “never in love” with Madhubala and shared that she was the one who proposed to him. “To me, she was my friend Dilip Kumar’s girlfriend and I used to act as a messenger for the two. It was she who proposed marriage to me and even insisted on it. Incidentally, even when Ruma (Kishore’s first wife) was with me Madhu used to joke, ‘Never ever leave him, else I would take your place’,” he said.
In another chat with Filmfare, Madhubala’s sister Madhur Bhushan said that soon after Kishore and Madhubala’s wedding, he flew her to London, where the doctors declared that “her heart was finished and that she wouldn’t live beyond two years.” Her sister also alleged that Kishore left Madhubala at their house, and recalled, “Kishore bhaiyya left her at our home. He said that she was sick and needed care while he had to travel, work, sing and hence wouldn’t be able to give her time. He said, I tried my best, I took her to London. But the doctors have said she won’t survive. What’s my fault?”
Madhubala died in 1969. (Photo: Express Archives)
She said that the doctors told Madhubala that she could not have sex, and could not have children, which contributed to Kishore’s decision. “We’re not saying that he was wrong. Aapa was told by the doctors you cannot have sex, you cannot have children… But yet a woman needs emotional support no matter what,” she said.
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According to her, Kishore only visited Madhubala once in three months. She recalled, “He’d say, ‘If I come, you’ll cry and it will not be good for your heart. You’ll go into depression. You should rest.’ She was young, jealousy was natural. Perhaps, a feeling of being abandoned killed her.” Madhubala died at 36 in 1969.
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