Sanjeev Kumar who has done films like ‘Sholay’, ‘Angoor’, ‘Seeta Aur Geeta’, ‘Aandhi’ unfortunately passed away too soon. He was loved as an actor and his fans continued to feel his void in the movies. The actor was also spoken about for his personal life, his decision to not get married and failed relationships with some actresses. In a recent interview, Sanjeev Kumar’s niece Jigna Shah and veteran journalist turned author Hanif Zaveri who has written the actor’s autobiography titled, ‘An Actor’s Actor: The Authorized Biography of Sanjeev Kumar’, spoke about his life. When asked about the rumours of Sanjeev Kumar’s relationships, Zaveri clarified in an interview with Vickey Lalwani, “Hema Malini wala maamla sach tha aur Nutan wala sach tha. Unka relationship tha Nutan ke saath. But other rumours after that, it was one sided. For instance, Sulakshana Pandit wanted to marry him but he was not interested. She also took him to temple to get married but he said no because he had this intuition that he won’t live long so he did not want to spoil someone’s life.” Further opening up on Sanjeev’s affair with Nutan, and when asked when it started, Hanif said, “It happened during the making of ‘Devi’ and they were quite serious. Director Govind Saraiya who was a common friend between Nutan and him and he used to make plans for them to meet. Saraiya has given me a quote in my book about it.” Sanjeev’s niece added, “Their relationship was there, but it just fizzled out because she was also married.” There were reports that Nutan had once slapped Sanjeev Kumar. Reacting to it, Zaveri said, “According to Sanjeev Kumar’s sister, Gayatri Pandit, one day before the slap incident, there was an argument between Mr and Mrs Nutan. To end their argument, he called her husband Rajnish Bahl. So the argument between them increased. So, the next day, just to prove to her husband that there’s nothing between him and Sanjeev Kumar, she slapped him. It was during the shoot of ‘Devi’ and the film shoot stopped as Nutan left from there. Sanjeev Kumar went to director Aspi Irani and he advised him that you should not speak about Nutan and this incidence to the media. He never spoke about Nutan till his last breath to anyone.”Earlier in an interview with Stardust, Nutan had said why she slapped him. She said, “I was disturbed and perplexed. Besides being my co-star, Sanjeev was nothing to me.” She even went on to say, “Sanjeev Kumar isn’t even worth my husband’s toe nail.” His niece Jigna Shah further revealed why he never got married, “He had a heart-attack once at a very young age and after that he had this mindset that he will not live for long, so why spoil someone else’s life by getting married. He had an intuition that he’s going to die early.”
