Film producer Boney Kapoor was married with two children when he decided to pursue actor Sridevi. They tied the knot secretly, but not before immense personal upheaval. Sridevi initially rejected his advances, reminding him that he was a married man. After they tied the knot in 1997, Boney Kapoor walked out on his first family, leaving kids Arjun and Anshula to deal with the aftermath. They reconnected when Sridevi died in 2018. In a new interview, Anshula opened up about her difficult childhood, and said that she was alienated by her peers because divorce and separation weren’t socially accepted back then.
She told Nayandeep Rakshit, “Going back to school, of course things changed. You have to keep in mind that our parents separated in the 1990s. India, in the 90s, was a closed economy, and also, we were very rooted in tradition. Our tradition speaks about one marriage, on family, lasting for life. Divorces were unheard of, and very uncommon. Separations were even more uncommon, even in a city like Mumbai. When our parents separated, it took people a while to understand that there is nothing inherently wrong with anybody’s character. It became very difficult for that to seep into people’s minds.”
She continued, “I was in the first standard, and what started happening was there were families who didn’t want to associate with what was happening in our lives. They didn’t want their children to come into our house, and be part of any friction. In the 90s, you went to some child’s house after school, right? I remember that there was a drastic shift in the way that my classmates were behaving towards me, and the way that their families were behaving towards me. It was a very emotional and a very confusing time to be in school.”
Anshula said that she found support in her cousins, Rhea Kapoor and Harsh Varrdhan Kapoor, because her brother, Arjun, was already in secondary school by then. “It’s very difficult, as a child, to understand why you’re being alienated by others. Perhaps this is why I still don’t understand how to be a part of groups. I’ve always had to meander my way through life as an individual,” she said.
She continued, “More than this, there was the confusion of not having dad at home, ever. Trying to deal with the reality of the family axis having shifted, and then not having any social access was very difficult. But I had mom, I had Arjun bhaiya, I had my cousins. Now, we’re a lot more open-minded.” Anshula said that her mother always treated her like an adult, and wouldn’t hide information from her, which would’ve left her blind-sided when she learned about it in the news. “Because of the partner that dad chose, unfortunately or fortunately, it became a lot more public, because they were both public figures. Had they not been that public, it would’ve been easier for us to deal with,” she said.
Boney Kapoor was married when he fell in love with Sridevi. They secretly tied the knot before going public, and had their first daughter, Janhvi, shortly afterwards. They have another daughter, Khushi. Anshula and Arjun bonded with their half-sisters after Sridevi’s death in 2018. Anshula said that she has gained two sisters because of the tragedy, and that she is now grateful to have them in her life. “We went through our own turmoil as we had our individual situations to face, she had her family and I had mine. But we had each other for comfort. We supported each other and dealt with it with a sense of calm. Sri conducted herself with dignity,” he said in an interview with Filmfare some years ago.
