Siblings and veteran actors Ratna Pathak Shah and Supriya Pathak recently appeared in Twinkle Khanna's YouTube talk show The Icons. When Twinkle asked her about the first time she met Naseer Ratna responded,
"In a rehearsal. We were doing a play with Dubeyji, and it was called 'Sambhog Se Sanyas Tak.' It covers the whole of our life story. Sanyas lena baaki hai, bass. He was wearing these great John Lennon glasses, and I like that, and he had a beard, I love men with beards…”
To which Supriya interjected, "How many men did you know before you met Naseer?" Ratna replied, “Supriya, there were so many good looking guys in college, I used to drool, I had eyes.” Supriya empasized, “No! No, you didn’t, you only had eyes for Naseer.”
Continuing about the meeting Ratna said, "I didn't even get his name right, because I was introduced to him by Dubey and by that time Dubej had got rid of a lot of his teeth, so you couldn’t understand a word that he said. He named him as Naseer but I couldn’t hear him, I heard Shivendra Sinha for some reason.” Ratna added that when Naseeruddin introduced himself to the cast, that's when she got his name right.
During the chat Ratna also spoke about how Naseeruddin tried to make her feel at ease with Heeba Shah, his daughter from his first marriage to Manara Sikri. "Naseer gave me some very good advice, which I don’t think I followed, he certainly hasn’t, but I also haven’t except in Heeba’s case. (He had said) it is best to not give too much name to a relationship - husband, wife, mother, son, etc. These things become straight jackets, if you keep the relationship a bit flexible, it helps. With Heeba, it definitely did that. Both of us happened to be in a situation where we could keep it flexible. I give all credit to Heeba because she was the younger one, she was the one to make all the tough adjustments to a new world. So, we just decided to try and take it as… let’s see how this develops, from both sides. And luckily, it developed well.”
Naseeruddin and Ratna got married in 1982 and have two sons - Vivaan and Imaad.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)