Meena Kumari is one of the most remembered and loved actresses in the history of Indian cinema. Her beauty and on-screen aura has remained unparalleled over the years. While professionally, her careers had no bounds, her personal life was not always very rosy. The actress had a bad marriage with husband Kamal Amrohi, apart from a very traumatic childhood.
Meena Kumari was abandoned by her father Ali Bux who left her outside an orphanage as he couldn’t afford to pay the doctor. After a traumatic childhood, even her marriage life was quite rough. She fell in love with Kamal Amrohi despite the fact that he was married. The duo parted ways as it wasn’t a rose-filled marriage. But Kamal continued to be obsessed with Meena. So much so, that according to reports, he had a huge issue with Dharmendra because he allegedly had an affair with Meena Kumari after she separated from Kamal.
Dharmendra is also known to have openly confessed his feelings for Meena Kumari and their chemistry in the films they did together was hard to miss. Kamal has directed some of the highly acclaimed movies like ‘
Pakeezah
‘, ‘Mughal-e-Azam’ among others. According to reports, he had cast Dharmendra in ‘Razia Sultan’ as a slave Jamal-ud-Din Yaqut while Hema Malini was cast as Empress
Razia Sultan
. Kamal had insisted that Dharmendra apply a black paint over his body for the role and the actor had to do it amidst scorching heat of the sun and shoot in the deserts bare-backed while the black paint was running down his face and body. Many thought, it was Kamal’s perfection as a director, but sources at that time, also said it was Kamal’s way to seek revenge.
It is also believed that Kamal removed Dharmendra from ‘Pakeeza’ due to his closeness to Meena Kumari. Meanwhile, many years ago, in an interview with ‘The Tribune’, Dharmendra had reacted to his relationship rumours with Meena Kumari. The actor had said, “People are jealous of me, man. I was not in love with Meena Kumari. She was a huge star and I was her fan. If you call the relationship between a fan and a star as love, then consider it as love.”
