Zeenat Aman says she never had a ‘relationship’ with Raj Kapoor, unlike what Dev Anand wrote in his book

MUMBAI, Feb 25 (Online): Yesteryear star Zeenat Aman has said that she “never had an inter-personal relationship with actor-filmmaker Raj Kapoor”. She was speaking at an event in Mumbai when she was asked to comment on an incident from a Raj Kapoor party, that Dev Anand had described his autobiography Romancing With Life.)

For long, Zeenat was linked to Raj Kapoor who transformed her career with his Satyam Shivam Sundaram in 1978. The incident mentioned in Dev Anand’s book was from the time when she had just been finalised for the Satyam Shivam Sundaram. It was widely known that Dev Anand was in love with his Hare Rama Hare Krishna co-star Zeenat Aman.

Recalling the party, Zeenat said this was her chance to make it all clear from her end and added, “Raj had signed me for Satyam Shivam Sundaram and I went there as his about-to-be heroine. I never had an inter-personal relationship (with him), not before that and never after that. It was always a director-actor relation (between us). He was passionate about his work and I was passionate about his work but never did he ask me why I did not wear white. In fact, if you look at it, I have never worn white on his sets or parties. Never has he said ‘why didn’t you wear white’? With all due respect, ek kahani banane me, hindsight se kuch interesting banane ke liye kuch jumle daal dete hain (sometimes, some phrases are added with the aim of making a narrative or a story interesting).”

Speaking at ABP event, she added, “Now, I am not sure about the perspective of Dev sahab. Lekin mai haq se kehti hu bilkul galat tha, mai apni kitaab me zarur likhungi (I say this rightfully that it was wrong, I will write about this in my autobiography). I admire and respect Dev Sahab, but this was not correct.”

In his book, Dev Anand wrote that he had fixed a meeting with Zeenat, soon after a brief presence at a party. But “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,” at the party. The actor-filmmaker described that he had fixed the meeting to confess his feelings for her and propose to her, when he “suddenly felt I was desperately in love with Zeenat”.