The man in question was Dr Chamanlal Bali, Raj Kapoor’s close friend and family physician.
In her memoir, Bonding, Vyjayanthimala recalled that Dr Bali was with the team of Sangam when they were filming in Switzerland, Paris and London and was a “close friend” of Raj Kapoor. Their bonding with each other was starting to become the subject of a lot of gossip, so when she attended the screening of Sangam at RK Studio in 1964, Raj asked her, “Is something going on with my friend? What is it?” She was “upset” with Raj’s questions and refused to answer him.
Dr Bali was the first man who took her out on a date, and this was also her first act of defiance against her family, as they were strictly against the match. Her grandmother, who had been her chaperone almost all her life, now moved back to Chennai (then Madras) as she did not approve of this match. “You’re a married man with three children. You’ve no sense. Never come to this house again,” her grandmother told Dr Bali, but Vyjayanthimala put a stop to this “humiliation”.
Vyjayanthimala felt she was being “disgraced” by the media and her grandmother’s dismissal of the relationship was adding fuel to the fire. “Not that I was doing anything wrong or interfering in his married life. No, I wasn’t doing anything of the sort,” she said.
Dr Bali told Vyjayanthimala that there was a “vacuum in my heart” or else why would he look for companionship outside of his marriage. “Obviously, if you’re compatible and happy with your spouse, no attraction would be distracting enough,” she explained.
At the time, it was also rumored that Dr Bali had “hooked me on drugs and I was not in my senses,” which was completely untrue, she wrote in her book. Rumours about him trying to steal Vyjayanthimala’s fortune had also started doing the rounds, but she paid no heed to them.
Things got worse when she started getting threat calls. “You better be careful. We’ll see to it that he’s bumped off,” she was told over the phone. Dr Bali too was getting similar calls. Threatening letters and stalkers became a part of her life as she was constantly living under a microscope.
After seven long years, since their first meeting, his divorce finally came through and they got married in 1968. She and her husband had mutually decided that she would quit films after marriage, and so she did.
“I was part of the film industry, but I never thought it was part of me, though it gave me a lot of fame and wealth. So I had no regrets quitting the industry. There was no question of Doctor saab insisting on my doing so or imposing his will. When I was in films, I was not married. And when I got married, I stopped working in films. It was as simple as that,” she said and added that being a part of films would have prevented her from “fulfilling my familial duties.”
Even after they got married, she got some lucrative offers. Javed Akhtar, of the Salim-Javed duo, and director Yash Chopra were very keen that Vyjayanthimala play Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor’s mother in Deewaar. They approached her via her husband and she believed that the only way to get out of this was to quote a really high price, and so she did. The role was ultimately played by Nirupa Roy. She was also offered a role opposite Dilip Kumar in Manoj Kumar’s Kranti, but she refused to do that as well.
Vyjayanthimala continued with her dancing career and credited her husband for being supportive through it all. They eventually moved to Chennai, with their son Suchindra, as Dr Bali left his practice and started a seafood export business, which, as per her, was quite successful. Dr Bali passed away in 1986, and Vyjayanthimala never married again. She continued with her dancing career, and her son, Suchindra, after completing his education, did a few films in the 2000s.
Sampada Sharma has been the Copy Editor in the entertainment section at Indian Express Online since 2017. ... Read More
