Dev Anand, Zeenat Aman & Raj Kapoor’s Unrequited Love Triangle Includes Drunken Stars, A ‘White Saree’ Promise & Enough Masala To Make A Solid Rom-Drama!
The evergreen star of Bollywood floored millions of women with his performances and stunning looks but could not get the one he truly loved: Zeenat Aman
When Dev Anand Almost Declared His Love To Zeenat Aman But Withdrew Because Of Raj Kapoor(Pic Credit: Movie Still)
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Dev Anand was one of the successful actors in Hindi cinema. The evergreen star of Bollywood floored millions of women with his performances and stunning looks but could not get the one he truly loved: Zeenat Aman. Scroll down to know more.
The late actor in his biography, Romancing With Life (2007) has mentioned freely and honestly about his feelings for Zeenat and how he had decided to confess them to her. The two had first met on the sets of Hare Rama Hare Krishna in 1971.
When the film was released, Zeenat Aman was 20 but Dev Anand was 48. He was already married and two kids. Zeenat’s bold demure had made Dev Anand fall in love with her. However, the yesteryear actress had never felt the same way for him.
Talking about it, the late actor in his book Romancing With Life wrote, “Whenever and wherever she was talked about glowingly, I loved it; and whenever and wherever I was discussed in the same vein, she was jubilant. In the subconscious, we had become emotionally attached to each other. Suddenly, one day I felt I was desperately in love with Zeenat – and wanted to say so to her! To make an honest confession, at a very special, exclusive place meant for romance. I chose the Rendezvous at the Taj, on top of the city, where we had dined together once earlier.”
Dev Anand even called Zeenat and had fixed a meeting with her after a party but soon things changed for him. He wrote, “A drunken Raj Kapoor threw his arms around her exuberantly. This suddenly struck me as a little too familiar. And the way she reciprocated his embrace seemed much more than just polite and courteous.”
Later rumours about Zeenat Aman’s close proximity to Raj Kapoor while filming Satyam Shivam Sundaram were rife. This made Dev Anand more suspicious. He mentioned in his book, “The hearsay now started ringing true. My heart was bleeding. In drunken joviality, Raj told Zeenat: ‘You are breaking your promise that you will always be seen by me only in a white sari’.”
He further wrote, “More embarrassment was written large on her face, and Zeenat was not the same Zeenat for me any more. My heart broke into pieces… The rendezvous had already lost all meaning in my mind. I sneaked out of the place.”
Later when Zeenat Aman came to know about it in a conversation with Algebra in 2018, she reacted to it. She said, “I respect Dev Saab greatly. It is because of Navketan that I became a movie star. But he had his perspective of what was happening that evening, which was completely different from mine. The thing is I did a lot of movies with Dev Anand and he considered me his protege. And I had been shooting with Raj Ji, and he had mentioned that he would at his place and Dev Saab was also supposed to be there at the same place. So I went and greeted him. Obviously, he was my co-star and I had aspirations to be in his movie. Honestly. I don’t know what Dev Saab took away from that because that was kind of weird. I had no idea that he was going to tell me that he was in love with me or he wanted to marry me. I was completely clueless.”
