At a pre-eve birthday meet hosted by Aamir Khan, the actor-filmmaker introduced the paparazzi to his new girlfriend Gauri Spratt, a Bangalore-based professional. Aamir Khan revealed to a room full of reporters and photographers that Gauri and he have been friends for almost 25 years and in a relationship for over a year. Khan shared that he has been frequently travelling to Bangalore to spend quality time with his beloved and that both their families are supportive of the relationship.
This happened on March 13 at a five-star hotel in Mumbai. I was not present for the celebration but I’m informed that the media were dizzy, too shocked to disguise their excitement. Nobody present in the room had the slightest inkling of what was coming, not the PR agency hired by Khan, nor his personal manager. Aamir joked that the media never got wind of his secret because he was super discreet. I feel they didn’t smell the scoop because the current crop is reared on press releases, which is why, when Aamir requested them to lower their cameras and shut off their mobiles, all of them obliged.
Time has proved that whenever a reigning superstar undergoing an upheaval has taken the media or their fans into confidence, both have validated the superstar’s decisions. My mind winds back to the 1980s. City, Madras (now Chennai). Superstar Kamal Haasan, still married to Vani Ganapathy, was in love with Bollywood actor Sarika. Their love story made headlines in two cities. Conservatives were shocked when Sarika declared that she was pregnant with Kamal Haasan’s baby. For some time, the actors were ostracised by their peer groups but show business made no discrimination.
During her second trimester, Sarika decided to shift base from Mumbai to Chennai and since Kamal Haasan and she was not officially married as yet, they had no home and Sarika was parked for the rest of her pregnancy at a five-star hotel. For six months she was restricted to her room and did not venture out of the premises until it was time to rush to the hospital. Kamal-Sarika’s firstborn, Shruti Rajalakshmi Haasan, arrived on January 28, 1986. A large crowd waited outside the hospital gate for hours to bless their deity’s newborn. A few hours later, Kamal arrived on the balcony of the hospital and showed his little one to his fans. They were jubilant and cheered him. Haasan didn’t say a word; he merely folded his hands and the crowd responded with a thunderous applause!
A decade later, another emotional moment, involving another superstar. Year, 1993. City, Hyderabad. Superstar NT Rama Rao (NTR), the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) founder and former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, around 70 at that time, had lost his first wife, Basvatarakam, to cancer. Then, out of the blue, another woman, almost half his age, Lakshmi Parvathy, a college lecturer and author from a small town in Guntur district, came into his life. Parvathy had separated from her first husband. NTR and Parvathy met in 1991 for an interview and love blossomed, culminating in a secret marriage in 1992. In 1993, at a film event held in Tirupati, an emotionally charged NTR publicly announced his marriage to Parvathy (who was by his side) and asked the audience if he had done anything wrong. There was a brief silence, and then came a deafening “No” from the large gathering.
In 1994, when the NTR-led TDP returned to power, Lakshmi was crowned as his lucky mascot. This was unacceptable to NTR’s children by his first wife, and his son-in-law N Chandrababu Naidu led the revolt against him. NTR protected his second wife Parvathy till his last breath. The intense love story was years later made into a film Lakshmi’s NTR by Ram Gopal Varma in 2019.
Back to Mumbai and Aamir Khan in 2025. Show business in Bollywood is poles apart from idol worship down South. When Khan made his debut in films in 1988, he was forced to keep his marriage to Reena Datta a secret as it would affect his stardom. When he found love again with Kiran Rao in 2005, the actor was more forthcoming. Aamir is perhaps the only two-time happily divorced actor I know in my career as a film journalist. Unlike the South superstars, who were isolated by their families, Aamir’s bloodline and ex-wives are supportive of his latest decision and Gauri is already a part of Aamir Khan’s family and festivities.
So, on that note, all I can say is congratulations, begum jaan.
The writer is a senior journalist
