When Asha Parekh said Rajesh Khanna, Vinod Khanna would get an earful from girlfriends for making merry at night

Actor Asha Parekh once spoke about how she was put off by the premise of marriage and repulsed by the narcissism of men with whom she went out. In an old interview, Asha also recalled that her co-stars Rajesh Khanna and Vinod Khanna got ‘an earful’ from their girlfriends, during shooting, as they were ‘making merry at night instead of being in bed’. (Also Read | Asha Parekh says she has ‘absolutely no regrets’ about not getting married)

Asha also recalled a time when she almost got married to a professor from the US. However, he revealed that he had a girlfriend and the actor was coming ‘in the way’. Asha had said that it was ‘the ‘final straw’ for her in the ‘whole wedding business’.

Speaking with Verve Magazine in 2019, Asha had responded to a question if she ever thought of getting married just to not be alone during old age. She had said, “Not at all. I saw the kind of people that were out there. When I went out with the boys that my mother set me up with, I was completely put off by the whole premise of marriage. They were so fussy! They’d take longer to get ready than I did and would keep preening in the mirror. The narcissism was repulsive. I know it seems silly but these little things really nettled me. There was also the case of my heroes Rajesh Khanna and Vinod Khanna getting an earful from their girlfriends during outstation shoots because they were gallivanting and making merry at night instead of being in bed.”

She had also revealed, “I would’ve never been able to take someone dictating terms to me — I was just not cut out for it. I did come very close to tying the knot once with a professor from the US. I was visiting him and we were in a cafe at 2 am, when he turned to me and nonchalantly said, ‘I have a girlfriend and you’ve come in the way’. It completely caught me off guard. In a way, that was the final straw for me in this whole wedding business.”

Asha started her career as a child artist taking the name, Baby Asha Parekh and starred in Maa (1952) and Baap Beti (1954). She made her debut opposite Shammi Kapoor with Dil Deke Dekho in 1959. Asha went on to feature in several movies such as Jab Pyar Kisi Se Hota Hai (1961), Phir Wohi Dil Laya Hoon (1963), Teesri Manzil and Do Badan (1966), and Baharon Ke Sapne (1967).