‘Sanjay Khan lies about his relationship with Zeenat Aman’

I’ve known Zeenat Aman for many many years. She is well-read, articulate, warm but reserved. She doesn’t invite unnecessary closeness from anyone. It takes years to win her trust but only moments to break her heart. Most importantly, she has never lied about any of her relationships, although most of them have been downright disastrous.

In fact, we laugh about it whenever I mention her atrocious choice of ‘intended’ life partners.

During one such conversation, the forever-feisty femme fatale had said to me, “I’ve to agree with you. When it comes to men, I’ve been pretty stupid. But one lives and learns, no regrets.”

For years now, 38 years to be precise, she has lived with an eye injury, a parting gift from a certain Mr Khan who has now come up with his alleged biography.

It is titled The Best Mistakes Of My Life.

‘A Pack Of Lies’ would have been a better title. A futile, fake and embarrassing exercise in self-glorification, the book (I refuse to call it a biography) just goes to prove why our Bollywood actors refrain from writing their biographies. Or why Mr Amitabh Bachchan has vowed to never write his memoirs.

“I can never bring myself to lay bare my life. My life is not mine alone. It involves many people’s lives,” he told me once.

Sanjay Khan seems to have missed this vital truism about self-confessionals. You have to keep the sensitivities of your loved ones in mind. But then, you can’t only be looking back anxiously at who is going to get hurt by your words. If you can’t speak about your personal life, then you can’t lie about it either.

When the legendary Vyjayanthimala’s biography came out, it denied her relationship with Raj Kapoor. Raj Saab’s son Rishi Kapoor was livid.

“What does she mean by denying the relationship? My mother and we the kids suffered the ramifications of the relationship,” said Rishi, making the legendary beauty look like a liar.

Much the same is true of Sanjay Khan, who has chosen to gloss over his widely-reported and messy relationship of five years with Zeenat Aman which culminated in her being thrashed in full public view at a 5-star hotel.

The incident and the relationship has been completely obliterated from the book. Has Mr Khan forgotten or does he take the readers to be fools?

A very senior and respected actress colleague of Zeenat says, “Of course, it happened (the public beating). And, of course, they were in a relationship. We warned her against it. But if he chooses to not go public about it, then that’s his choice. What happened was between the two of them. We are no one to judge them.”

An outspoken major veteran actor who has worked with both Khan and Aman is embarrassed by what he calls the “tampering of truth.”

“We all know what had happened between Sanjay Khan and Zeenat. I was a first-hand witness to it. First of all, anyone, who raises his hand on a woman and that too so brutally that she is scarred for life, should be in jail, not writing his self-glorifying fairytale biography. And secondly, if you were brazen enough to humiliate and hurt a lady in public, why are you shy of admitting it now? This is as bad as the film Sanju which completely whitewashed Sanjay Dutt’s image,” says the irrepressible actor.

Veteran actress Asha Parekh, who recently released her memoirs, says she was “very clear in her head” about what she wanted to say. She went public with her long-lasting relationship with filmmaker Nasir Hussain after seeking the deceased director’s family’s permission.

“One can only write about one’s life if one wants to tell the truth. Otherwise, what is the purpose of a memoir,” reasons Asha Parekh.

Perhaps while writing The Best Mistakes Of My Life, Sanjay Khan forgot his biggest mistake: being in a very public relationship and then pretending that it never happened.