MID-DAY (April 1, 2014)

Married? Never
It is said that veteran actress Shyama fell in love and married her director Fali Mistry in 1953. But Shyama was so worried about her career getting affected because of her marital status, that she hid her marriage for hold your breath — 10 full years! It was only when she got pregnant with her first son Farooq, was she forced to tell the world about her marriage.

Juhi Chawla used the same trick in 1997 when she secretly married businessman Jai Mehta. However, she continued denying any relationship and she is said to have even referred to her already husband as “just a good friend”. It was only when she got pregnant with her daughter, did she reluctantly talk about being married to the man. Later, Juhi confessed that she did it to save her career as she was sure that offers would start dwindling after marriage. After her, Mahima Chaudhury and a few others tried hiding their marriage unsuccessfully.

For Sridevi, career was not the only issue. Her ‘husband’ Boney Kapoor was still married to Mona. So Sri went on denying the relationship till her baby bump started showing. She is said to have later tried covering up the deceit by saying she herself was not aware of being pregnant. Eventually the couple had no choice but to admit to the relationship.

Now deceased Mona had then confessed that the fact that the news of Sri carrying her husband’s child had come as a bolt from the blue for her. At that point, she had said, “There was nothing left in the relationship to give it a chance because Sridevi was already with a child.” While these actresses later confessed red- facedly about their deceit, actress Rekha is still hanging on to her version of the story that she was never married to actor Vinod Mehra.

In relationship? No! We are just good friends
There have been several instances in Bollywood about a dating couple denying any romantic involvement. Some recent examples are: Ritesh Deshmukh and Genelia D’souza shooed off any reporter asking them about their relationship, till they one day announced their wedding date.

Rani Mukerji has been keeping everyone on a constant wedding alert as rumours of her destination wedding continues to make the rounds.

When IT officials gave a surprise visit to Priyanka Chopra, they were surprised to find Shahid Kapoor inside the flat. But later PC tried another version of her own when she said that she had called Shahid after the IT raid.

Vidya Balan ducked and denied rumours of her relationship with Siddharth Roy Kapur even when the pictures of them holidaying together were out for public consumption.

Even after their wedding date was set, the couple played truant by apparently declaring the venue to be some other place and getting married somewhere else.

Anushka Sharma is still going red in the face denying her romance with Virat Kohli, even though there have been enough photographic evidence to tell us otherwise.

Anything to promote the film…
There are many instances when the producers and the PR people go on an overdrive while promoting the film and don’t stop short of making mountains out of molehills.

But one incident stands out for the sheer laziness on part of the people who planned it.

During the making of the film, Singh is Kinng, producer of the film Vipul Shah was quoted as saying that Akshay Kumar personally went shopping for a turban for the American rap artiste Snoop Dogg, who was making an appearance in the film. The promotional plan was obviously not conveyed to Akshay, who when asked about it, retorted by saying, “Do I look like the kind of man that goes turban shopping? We have dress dadas to do that.”

Katrina Kaif had earlier refused to accept her relationship with Salman Khan. And later she continued being on denial when she started dating Ranbir Kapoor. Kaif ’s silence worked but for that one time when she had claimed to be not well and recuperating at home and some zealous fan caught her on camera on a beach in Ibiza with her beau.

Age is just a number
Actresses hiding their age is nothing new. But Kangana Ranaut got caught in the act when she claimed that she is 22 in 2009. She had to eat her words when her birth year on her passport got leaked and the world realised that she had decided to tuck away six years of her life.

The fool’s crown goes to…
Mallika Sherawat’s — or rather her PR agency’s — antics to create a hype have often been ridiculed. From stories of her growing closeness with Antonio Banderas creating trouble in his marriage with Melanie Griffith to claiming during Cannes last year that she was the first woman to kiss on Indian screen to many more. Sherawat does it all pretty unabashedly.