Renuka Vyavahare (BOMBAY TIMES; June 24, 2017)

Om Puri’s first wife, Seema Kapoor, talks about working with him on her directorial venture, and the void he’s left behind
Anju Maskeri (MID-DAY; January 22, 2017)

While narrating the script of her upcoming film Kabadiwala to the cast in June last year, Seema Kapoor recalls a comment actor Om Puri made at the end of the session. “The protagonist in the film is a kabadiwala’s (junk dealer’s) son, who manages the community toilets in the village. But, he goes around telling everyone that he owns a restaurant chain. When Puri ji heard the narration, all he said was, ‘Seema, film hai toh badbu pe, par ismein se khushboo aa rahi hai (although the film is about stench, I can smell fragrance in it)’,” says Seema, actor Annu Kapoor’s sister, who married Om Puri in 1991. Their marriage lasted less than a year — Puri then married journalist Nandita Puri. But, 38 years on Seema and Om still maintained a more than cordial relationship.

Seema, in fact, was one of the last people the veteran star called before his death. On the evening of January 5, when she was in the editing studio, he called up to know where she picked up grain for the birds she fed every day. That was her last conversation with him. And, the film, which the duo was working on, was Puri’s last.

On January 6, the star was found dead at his Lokhandwala Oakland Park residence. Puri, who was believed to be in good health and had returned from work, a day prior, was reported to have died of a fatal heart attack while alone at home. Kapoor is still grieving. She pauses frequently to fight back tears. For the last seven years, she was Puri’s constant companion.

“While we were shooting in Lucknow, Puri ji personally went around making all the hotel arrangements for the crew. He even coordinated with the caterers and ordered food for all of us. He would jokingly add, ‘Put my name in the line producer credits.’ Imagine, somebody of his stature doing chores for the crew. Sometimes I wonder why he was doing so much. But that’s who he was,” she adds.

It’s this sense of humility, she feels, that endeared Puri to all. Although the duo had worked together on two documentaries earlier, this was their first feature together. Puri was supposed to play the ‘sutradhar’ or the narrator in the film. Incidentally, the Uri debacle had taken place when the actor was in Lucknow shooting for Kapoor’s film. Puri, at that point of time, was part of a televised debate about the IMPPA’s (Indian Motion Pictures Producers’ Association) indefinite ban on Pakistani artistes from working in Indian projects. The ban was in response to the killing of 19 Indian soldiers in a terror attack at Uri, Jammu and Kashmir on September 18. During the debate, Puri lost his cool and said, “Who had asked the soldiers to join the army? Who told them to pick the weapons?” This statement led to Puri being vilified for being callous. A police complaint was filed against him at the Andheri police station for being insensitive towards the soldiers who lost their lives for the country.

“When he returned, I said to him, ‘Ek sentence galat nikal gaya’, and that one line proved costly. He, of course, did not mean it. He just did not how to phrase things correctly,” she says. Puri plunged into depression after that. Kapoor recalls how that night Puri did not turn up for the shoot, but stayed back in his room. “He kept saying, that he’s done so much in his life, but that one line is all people choose to remember. He was devastated. All the channels and people on social media were vilifying him. His apologies went unheard in that,” she says.

In their 38-year-long association, Kapoor had seen several upheavals in their relationship. Towards the end of 1991, Puri confessed that another woman (Nandita Puri) had come into his life and he wanted a divorce. She silently gave her consent, but chose not to go public even after she got divorced. “Both of us maintained our dignity and respect. Neither he nor I ever badmouthed each another. We have seen the worse times, had the most bitter fights with each other, but never washed dirty linen in public,” she reveals.

She feels it’s the sense of implicit trust that made them surmount all obstacles and be other’s confidantes through the years. “When you love somebody, you love them in totality. And for me, he was my companion in good and bad times. It’s a void that will never be filled.”


Om Puri and Seema Kapoor (centre) in her hometown, Jhalawar, in 1980

Om Puri’s first wife, Seema Kapoor, walks us through a love story that began in 1981 and would’ve culminated in Jhalawar had it not been for the actor’s untimely death
Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 12, 2017)

Their first meeting was in August 1979, when Seema Kapoor was just 19, a first year student at the Aligarh Muslim University. It was her first visit to Mumbai with her director brother, Ranjit Kapoor, her bhabhi, and their daughter. Karan Razdan came to receive them at the station and drove them straight to Prithvi theatre where rehearsals for the play, Bichoo, were on. Spotting the two ladies, Om Puri who was on stage, announced with a theatrical flourish, “Disha aa gayi hai aur sharmati hui koi aur bhi unke saath aayi hain....” His words made the shy, reserved teenager blush. “We instantly forged a karmic connection,” she says. It would, despite all the turmoil, last a lifetime.

“All my brother’s friends I addressed as bhai or bhaisaab, but he was always Puri saab for me, never Om bhai, and I was happy that on rakshabandhan he got only one rakhi for me to tie around my brother’s wrist,” Seema reminisces 38 years later, looking at the garlanded photograph of her former husband in her living room, still finding it hard to believe that the man she’s loved all her life is no more.

He was equally enamoured by her, so much so that he ensured she missed her 9pm train to Bhawani Mandi, deliberately turning up late with her ticket. After packing off her brother and his family to Delhi the next morning, he whisked her off on a Mumbai darshan, Jaidev Hattangadi driving a scooter, Om sitting behind him and Seema riding in the sidecar.

That evening, when it was time for her train to leave, they both burst into tears. Then, for almost a year, they didn’t meet till Seema bumped into Om in Delhi when down to visit her brother. The day she was leaving, Om offered to drop her to the bus stand. While bidding her goodbye, he boldly shook her hand and slipped a piece of paper in her palm. Seema, disconcerted by the touch of his hand, agonised over what she believed was a love letter all through the two-hour journey back, wondering how she was going to broach the subject of love and marriage with a struggling actor 10 years older than her with her parents. It wasn’t till she had reached Aligarh that she discovered that what she believed was a love letter was actually twenty rupees note.

After completing her studies, she moved to Delhi and took a room where Om would visit her. Occasionally, she let him stay the night. Once, when he was taking a bus to Ludhiana, he borrowed Rs 20 from her, which he never returned. Today, the mention of a twenty rupees note has her tearing up. “I never wanted his money or his property. He was my property,” Seema says emotionally.

Simply dressed in a churidar-kurta, she is a picture of grace, dignity and reserve. It’s hard to imagine that this small town, conservative girl became a krantikari, taking Om home to Jhalawar and introducing him to her family and friends as her ‘boyfriend’ back in the ’80s. “When Puri saab was around, I wasn’t scared of anything or anyone,” admits Seema who never spoke about marriage to him. It was Om’s father who wanted them to tie the knot, not happy with some of his new friends.

“Bauji loved me like his daughter and in 1989, he’d turn up at my brother’s (Annu Kapoor) home every morning at 5 am urging him to ask me to marry Puri saab. Finally, Annu bhai asked Puri saab to stop bauji. He then landed up in Jhalawar with bauji, asking my mother for my hand. My father had passed away just six months ago and she was hesitant but Puri saab insisted we get engaged. It was all so sudden, we couldn’t even inform Annu bhai and he was really upset,” she flashbacks.

They tied the knot on February 28, 1990, but didn’t live happily ever after. Towards the end of 1991, Om confessed that another woman (Nandita Puri) had come into his life and he wanted a divorce. She quietly consented and went away, deaf to all those who insisted that he should be punished for leaving her.

Another woman might have moved on but for Seema her Puri saab was the only man she’s ever loved. And when he returned to her, asking for forgiveness, wanting to spend his old age with her, she couldn’t turn him away.

For the last seven years she was his constant companion, the first person he saw when he gained consciousness after a surgery last year. Like a child, he demanded tea, then food, getting his driver, Mishraji, to film a video of her feeding him seven rotis on his cell phone which he’d show friends. She wishes she had at least that video to remember him by.

For six years Om was engaged in a legal battle with his second wife Nandita and last year they went for a legal separation. Seema offered solace in the midst of the storm, taking him to Bodh Gaya and introducing him to Buddha’s positive vibrations that left both of them crying and disciplining him on diet and exercise. He reciprocated by surprising her one afternoon with a meal of dal, sabzi and rotis he had made himself in 30 minutes, after he’d invited himself over for lunch when she was away at work and the cook hadn’t turned up.

She admits the last year-and-a-half was difficult for him and he was drinking heavily. “He’s been taking depression pills for the last 12-13 years and this coupled with the alcohol had taken a toll on his health,” reveals Seema, shocked by his appearance after he returned from a schedule in Manali and she from her shoot in Lucknow. “I was upset with him for drinking so much and I told him he should only come back to me after he had quit liquor. He called me that evening and told me he wanted to say something in Hindi,” she recalls, adding with a laugh that her Hindi has always been good and helped him improve his own. “Prayashchit, pashchataap and sandhi… Sandhi kar lein? I told him sandhi referred to war and peace treaty. I had no jhagdha with him. I just wanted what was good for him.” She admits they argued frequently but the ‘jhagdas’ were short-lived, ending after a night’s sleep and with a laugh. This time too, she couldn’t stay angry with him for long.

On the evening of January 5, when she was in the editing studio, he called several times. When she took the call he wanted to know where she picked up grain for the birds she fed every day. “He’d loved watching the birds with me,” she muses, looking at a sparrow peck on his feeding bowl. As if on cue, the garland around his photograph slips and Seema says, “See, he’s listening to everything I’m saying.”

She goes on to reveal that he was planning to file for divorce on January 16 with the intention of closing his chapter with Nandita. After that he wanted to spend time with Sema at her mother’s home in Jhalawar. He loved going back to the former princely state he’d first visited with her in 1981, where he was a jamai babu, jiju and bhaiya to everyone and not a movie star. “He visited frequently in the last seven years. Whenever there, he’d go shopping every morning and buy so many vegetables that we had to distribute them among four families. He had developed an interest in gardening. We were looking forward to spending our last years there,” sighs Seema, happy that she could bid him goodbye with a chautha at a gurdwara. “He was happiest in a gurdwara. He had taken me to Amritsar twice and Patiala once, I felt his presence there,” she says. After the 13-day ritual she’s planning to go home to Jhalawar but this time without him.

Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 10, 2017)

Kept his two wives away from each other to avoid any unpleasantness
Subhash K Jha (DNA; January 8, 2017)

On Friday, friends, specially Javed Akhtar and Shabana Azmi rushed to Om Puri’s home after hearing of his death. Sources close to the tragedy say Shabana was the pillar of strength to Om’s bereaved family.

They were the perfect co-stars. Om Puri and Shabana were together in monumental classics of our times including Roland Joffe’s City Of Joy, Shyam Benegal’s Susman and Sudhir Mishra’s Dharavi. And now, on his death she proved a perfect friend by managing a sensitive situation when both of Om Puri’s wives showed up at his home on his death.

Says a friend of Om, “Shabana made sure that there was no unpleasantness. She personally guided Seemaji inside to see Om’s body when Seemaji arrived, thereby avoiding all awkwardness in the situation.”

Says Shabana, “I did what was the need of the hour. It was only fair that both Nandita and Seema be treated with respect at the venue of the tragedy after Om’s death. Both women conducted themselves with great dignity.”

Shabana can’t get over the suddenness of the tragedy. “I did 14 films with Om and am deeply, deeply saddened by his death.”

Tanvi Trivedi (BOMBAY TIMES; January 7, 2017)

Annu Kapoor, whose sister Seema was previously married to Om Puri, talked to BT about his troubled equation with the late actor...

You have been vocal against Om Puri in the past...
The person (Puri) is no more and it is past now. We are courteous and cultured enough to express our deep condolences and pray that his soul rests in peace, but my priority is to take care of the person (Seema) who has suffered the most in this.

How has Seema reacted to the news?
She is devastated, but under the present circumstances, she will not even be allowed to see the body. Isn't that ironical?

Why?
I don't want to comment on that. It is a very complicated matter; the world is full of obnoxious and cheater individuals and I feel God is nowhere. Throughout the conflict, she suffered the most.

I believe your sister reunited with him in the last few years...
No, it was the other way round - Om wanted to reunite with her. My sister was a genuine, honest person, but she suffered and cheaters are in a respected position. My sister accepted him despite him being so unwell. She looked after him, while he always played with her emotions. Nevertheless, I don't want to dwell on it at this moment. I am only bothered about my sister.

Vickey Lalwani (MUMBAI MIRROR; April 1, 2014)

Veteran actor Om Puri’s personal life made headlines last year as his marriage to Nandita Puri crumbled amidst claims of domestic violence and a rekindled romance with his first wife Seema Kapoor.

While Seema had denied the allegations made by Nandita, Mirror has it that she joined Om during his recent trip to Pakistan, where he performed the Punjabi play Teri Amrita co-starring Divya Dutta.


Buzz is, the former couple also shared a suite in Avari Hotel, a luxury property in Lahore.

When contacted Seema told us that she had indeed been in the city, but for the screening of her film Haat –The Weekly Baazar’s screening.

“I was definitely in Lahore. But I was there for my film’s screening and I stayed with a friend,” said Seema. When asked whether she and her ex-husband returned together from Lahore, she replied, “Please don’t ask me such questions.”

However, a hotel employee at Avari confirmed that Om Puri and Seema Kapoor had indeed stayed at their hotel for as many as five days.

Another employee from the same hotel, Ali, added, “Om booked a suite under his name. He was staying with his wife Seema (note how he doesn't refer to her as Om's ex-wife). The suite has two rooms, which were interconnected.”

Meanwhile, a source close to Om told Mirror that the actor had called up his son Ishaan from Lahore and told him that he was in Chandigarh for work.

In an earlier interview with Mirror (August 28, 2013), Om had categorically stated, "Yes. I would like to live with Seema, I like her. But if that happens, it would happen only when I have legally parted ways with Nandita."

The 65-year-old actor and his second wife Nandita Puri have not yet been granted divorce.

When contacted, Om endorsed Seema’s statement that she had stayed with a friend. But when told that the hotel had confirmed their stay, he replied, “Fine. Please go ahead and print whatever they say. I am with a doctor and am too unwell to speak anymore.”