When Satish Kaushik proposed marriage to Neena Gupta after she got pregnant with Masaba

In her autobiography, Sach Kahun Toh, Neena Gupta had shared an anecdote on how her friend Satish Kaushik had offered to marry her, when she was pregnant with her daughter, fashion designer-actor Masaba Gupta. In a 2021 interview, Satish had explained why he did so. Neena had gotten pregnant, while dating former West Indies cricketer Viv Richards in the 1980s. She raised Masaba, who was born on November 2, 1989, as a single mother.

In the memoir that was released in June 2021, Neena had revealed that Satish Kaushik had offered to marry her and told her, “Don’t worry, if the child is born with dark skin, you can just say it’s mine and we’ll get married. Nobody will suspect a thing.” Speaking to Bombay Times in 2021, Satish Kaushik had said that he had known Neena since 1975 and shared a close friendship with her. His offer to marry her came from his fondness for her as a friend, he said.

“I used to appreciate the fact that a girl at that time decided to have a child out of wedlock. As a true friend, I simply stood by her and gave her confidence. Whatever you are reading in the memoir, it was all an expression of my affection for her as a friend. I was concerned about not letting her feel alone. At the end of the day, that’s what friends are for, right? As mentioned in the book, when I offered to marry her, it was a mix of humour, concern, respect, and support for my best friend in her time of need,” Satish had said in the interview.

On Thursday, Neena Gupta mourned the death of her close friend and Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron co-star Satish Kaushik. She shared an emotional video on Instagram in which she spoke about ‘waking up to a very sad news’. She said in Hindi, “There’s only one person in the whole world who called me Nancy, and I used to call him Kaushikan. Our friendship goes back to our college days, and we’ve shared a long association, whether we met often or not. He’s no more now. It’s very scary and sad…”