But I said we were not committing a crime and that we should have a ceremony, however small, in the presence of our parents.” She continues, “The next day, my father-in-law (Prithviraj Kapoor) asked for my hand jholi pehlakar. I’d like you to be the mistress of my house’,” recalls Neila Devi adding, “He also suggested that we get married at the Banganga Temple in the middle of the night (just as Geetaji and he had got married in 1955). Finally, he said, ‘Come tomorrow for breakfast and stay over for a lifetime. He told me all about himself - his marriage, his children, his girlfriends, his mistresses, his wild side, his good side.
Anyway, our conversation, which began at 2 am, lasted till dawn. At first my sister refused to believe it was ‘Shammi Kapoor’. “But that very night Shammiji called up my home at 1.30 am and asked for me. She believed I’d be able to look after Shammiji and the children.” So, during Ritu’s sangeet (she was getting married to businessman Rajan Nanda) Krishnaji and Urmiji (Urmila Sial, Shammi’s sister) asked Shammi to meet Neila Devi. “Ritu (Raj Kapoor-Krishna’s eldest daughter) was my friend in college. Several years later, it was Krishna Kapoor (the late Raj Kapoor’s wife) who was keen that her brother-in-law Shammi, who was left in great emotional turmoil after wife Geeta’s untimely death due to small-pox, marry Neila Devi. Shammi became friends with Neila Devi’s brother Raghuvir Singh. That was the key,” she reflects on their life and times together.Īs a nine-year-old, Neila Devi remembers Shammi pulling her pigtails when he had come with his father and actor the late Prithviraj Kapoor’s theatre troupe to Bhavnagar. I never went beyond my husband and children. But the Rajput in me took on the challenge to make it work. In fact, I was scared by the proposal,” reveals Neila Devi who was 10 years his junior. At 27, I was not a kid who’d get excited at the thought of marrying a star. In my wildest dreams, I had never imagined marrying him. And I also knew about his wild reputation. I had all his press cuttings, even those from Filmfare. When Neila Devi Gohil, from the royal family of Bhavnagar, agreed to marry superstar Shammi Kapoor, she knew she was not living out a fairytale. Someone who chose not to have children of her own in a bid to nurture with utmost fairness his two from an earlier marriage to the late Geeta Bali.
Someone who rescued him from a life gone awry.
Shammi Kapoor may have serenaded dazzling beauties on the screen but his real heroine lay back at home.
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