Zarine Khan, who was the wife of actor-filmmaker Sanjay Khan, passed away on Friday at 81. The two had been for nearly 60 years and like most marriages, theirs witnessed many ups and downs. Zarine and Sanjay were parents to three children – Simone, Farah, Sussanne and Zayed. Zarine and Sanjay’s love story started like a fairy tale, but after Sanjay became a star in the 1960s, their relationship went through a lot of turbulence as rumours around Sanjay’s affair with Zeenat Aman gained steam. Zarine stuck with Sanjay, and the two stayed together until the end.
Zarine Khan and Sanjay Khan’s love story
In his memoir, The Best Mistakes of My Life, Sanjay shared that he first saw Zarine when she was just 13, and he was 18, in Juhu, Mumbai. “We gazed into each other’s eyes and in that moment, I knew hers were the eyes of someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with,” he wrote and added that he proposed to her as soon as they spoke to each other. She calmly said that she would say yes if she felt the same way about him even after a year. He found her to be “mature for her age” and she quickly became his confidante. He was still trying to figure out his way in the world, and she was a young girl, and the two continued to date each other for six years.
During this time, Sanjay became a star with films like Dosti and Haqeeqat, and per his own admission, he signed nearly 100 films in a short span of time. He was described as one of most good looking men of the era, and had a huge female fan following. So much so that even his co-stars would often have a crush on him. He shared that once, the father of one of his leading ladies, approached him and asked him to marry his daughter. Sanjay flatly refused for he was committed to Zarine. “Sir, I can’t marry her. I am already committed to my girlfriend whom I am in love with,” he said, and was subsequently dropped from many films that he had signed.
ALSO READ | ‘Hrithik Roshan stuttered, Sussanne Khan was at ugliest worst’: Zarine Khan said they were bonded forever despite divorce
Zarine and Sanjay Khan got married in 1966. (Photo: Express Archives)
Sanjay and Zarine continued their courtship and got married in 1966 as the biggest names in Bollywood attended their wedding celebrations. Raj Kapoor, Dharmendra, Dilip Kumar, Meena Kumari, and many others blessed the newlyweds.
Zarine gave up modelling to be with Sanjay
Zarine started her career as a model and was starting to do really well for herself, but Sanjay gave her an ultimatum. Although he claimed in his book that he wasn’t jealous, Zarine felt otherwise. He wrote, “Even though I knew that male and female models worked in close proximity, I was never jealous because it never, even in the remotest recesses of my mind, occurred to me that Zarine would ever allow an outsider to invade our space.”
But, in a 2012 chat with Filmfare, she shared that was quite “possessive.” “My boyfriend was so possessive, he said ‘Either you go to London or stay with me’. I chose to be with him and I’m glad. Today I have a family,” she shared.
Story continues below this ad
‘Heartbroken’ Zarine gave Sanjay an ‘ultimatum’
In the late 1970s, it was rumoured that Sanjay was having an affair with his Abdullah co-star Zeenat Aman, and when word reached Zarine, it broke her heart. She told Filmfare, “It came as a shock. I went through much emotional turmoil when I was carrying Zayed,” She added that she would “wear six inch heels in the ninth month of my pregnancy just to be stylish, just to keep up a brave front. I was heartbroken.”
Zarine said that she gave Sanjay an “ultimatum” and things ended soon after. “I threw a tantrum and gave him an ultimatum that I’d walk out. That’s when things returned to normalcy. Maybe it was just ‘a mad wind’ that blew over,” she said.
Years later, Sanjay, while writing his memoir, implied that he never had an affair with Zeenat. Without taking any names, he said that the “princess” was “alluring” the “prince” as Sanjay and Zeenat were playing a prince and princess in Abdullah. “Sometimes it happens that an actor and an actress, they get into character and they start living the character off the screen too. So the romance was between the prince and the princess, they remain prince and the princess. So there is the question of being in love in real life… didn’t happen,” he said.
Zeenat Aman with Sanjay Khan in Dhund. (Photo: Express Archives)
Sanjay’s alleged altercation with Zeenat Aman
Some time after this, Sanjay had an alleged altercation with Zeenat at a party that injured her eye for life. In a chat with Hrishikesh Kannan on his podcast, Sanjay said that he never “slapped her” and said that it was an orchestrated PR attack against him. Zeenat also addressed the issue during her appearance on Simi Garewal’s talk show where she opened up about the “unpleasant” experience. “For many years, in my mind, it’s been obliterated because I think that’s what the human mind does. When there is something distinctly unpleasant, you just close your mind to it and pretend that it never happened and you promise yourself that it will never happen again. And that’s how you cope,” she said.
Story continues below this ad
Sanjay did acknowledge that his “mess” could have led to his divorce with Zarine, but she persevered. “We have never discussed the unfortunate mess I was in – it was too raw. Another woman might have revolted and sought divorce, but Zarine has always believed that a human being has two sides, one good and the other bad, and that we must always look at the good side,” he said.
Zarine supported her husband through all of this and said that the “media was unfair” to him. She told Filmfare, “The media was unfair to him. They unnecessarily attacked Abbas (Sanjay). They made him out to be the evil one. Now, looking back, I feel so bad. I even said hello to her (Zeenat). Today she’s happy, I am happy, life has moved on, it’s over.”
Zeenat Aman continues to work as an actor in the movies.
Zarine and Sanjay Khan got married in 1966. (Photo: Express Archives)
Zarine gave up her modelling career to be with Sanjay. (Photo: Express Archives)
Zeenat Aman with Sanjay Khan in Dhund. (Photo: Express Archives)
Zarine Khan (left) stuck by Sanjay Khan amid rumours of his affair with Zeenat Aman. (Photo: Express Archives)