Asha Parekh turns a year older today. The actor, who was once one of cinema's highest-paid actors, made millions of hearts beat for her but opted to remain single for the rest of her life. The Dil Deke Dekho star was in love with a married man, but she was not in the mood to be a 'homewrecker', so she chose to live her life as she did.
Talking about making her choice to remain single for life, Asha had told Verve magazine in 2019, “Staying alone was probably one of the best decisions I made. I was in love with a married man and didn’t want to be a homewrecker so, in retrospect, it was the only choice I had, according to the way I wanted to live my life. You see, time and circumstance are everything. You can’t stop what is meant to happen, and you can’t force what isn’t fated to occur. But I hope you know you’re signing up for a life of endurance.”
“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 a.m., when he turned to me and nonchalantly said, ‘I have a girlfriend and you’ve come in the way’."
Although Asha is only a year away from turning 80, people who know her are well aware of her adventurous nature. She travels with her best friends Helen and Waheeda Rehman, and the three recently visited Turkey.
For the unversed, The Government of India awarded her the Padma Shri in 1992 for her contributions to the world of cinema.
