Ratna Pathak Shah on her unconventional love story with Naseeruddin Shah: It was total fluke

Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah

Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah are among the couples that are connected by the love for their craft. The pair met while rehearsing for a play, and that brought them together. As Ratna Pathak Shah turns 67 on March 18, 2024, we revisit the time the actress spoke about her love life.

When Ratna Pathak Shah appeared with her sister Supriya Pathak on Twinkle Khanna‘s YouTube talk show last year, she described how she met Shah. "We were doing a play with Dubey ji and it was called Sambhog Se Sanyas Tak, which 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," she said.

Ratna then continued the story of her first meeting with Naseer, and said, "I didn't even get his name right, because I was introduced to him by (Satyadev) Dubey and by that time Dubey 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." Twinkle asked her if she called him Shivendra, and Ratna replied, "No, no, as we went to the rehearsals, Naseer introduced himself to the rest of the cast. So then I heard it is Naseeruddin Shah."

In another interview with Humans of Bombay, she had added, "We pretty soon realised we want to be together. We were stupid, we didn't ask too many questions. Today people ask all the right questions. We were like, ‘This sounds good, let's just try.' and it worked out. It was total fluke. Can't claim any credit for it. It just worked out (sic.)"

Ratna Pathak and Naseeruddin Shah tied the knot in 1982, after dating for seven years. Naseeruddin Shah already had a daughter, Heeba Shah, from his first marriage to Manara Sikri. Talking about how he adjusted to into Naseer's home, Ratna shared a piece of advice that the actor gave her to make the process smoother.

She said, "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 straitjackets, 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."

Ratna Pathak and Naseeruddin Shah have two sons - Imaad and Vivaan Shah.