Although Shatrughan Sinha and Poonam Sinha have been married for the past 45 years, the actor-parliamentarian recently revealed that her family was initially against their union. In a recent interaction, he also took a trip down memory lane, recalling the first time he met Poonam. Sharing that their journey together began on a train, Shatrughan said it was the first time he had seen a girl that beautiful.
“I was on my way to the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, from Patna after getting admission there. In our train compartment, I saw a girl who was more beautiful than any other I had seen until then. I was accompanied by some boys who had tagged along to drop me at FTII. They were in the mood to tease her and started doing that. I told them not to, pointing out that I was going to Pune alone and that her family members would come beat me up at night (for their actions). ‘Who will save me then? You guys will leave after all the teasing.’ With difficulty, I managed to save her from them,” he shared during a conversation with Curly Tales.
Shatrughan Sinha, however, maintained that it was the shared sorrow they were both going through during that journey that brought them together. “I was crying because it was my first time away from home. I had never lived in a hostel before. Nor had I ever travelled beyond Bihar. I didn’t know how I would survive in the hostel or how I would manage expenses. I was the youngest child in my family. My mom had fainted on her way back after dropping me off. As I was sitting in the train crying, she (Poonam) was also there, crying. Apparently, my future mother-in-law (Poonam’s mother) had scolded her for some reason. She was a little girl back then, still in school,” he recalled.
The actor-politician further quipped that the way their bond formed was so strong back then that the situation has not changed even 45 years later. “That day, she was crying and so was I. Now, we have been married for so many years and have three children together — Luv, Kush and Sonakshi Sinha. But there has been no change in our characters. Even now, she is crying and so am I,” he added with a laugh.
‘Shatrughan looks like a fool as well as a street rowdy at the same time’
Shatrughan Sinha and Poonam Sinha have been married for 45 years now. (Express archive photo)
Although Shatrughan Sinha and Poonam were in love, he shared that her family didn’t agree to their marriage at first and only gave their approval after many years. “Our marriage happened with so much difficulty. Her family said yes only after waiting for so many years. It was my elder brother Ram Sinha, who worked in the US as a scientist, who took my proposal to their house for the first time. Poonam’s mother rejected it outright, asking, ‘Have you seen your brother’s face? Kaliya! He looks like a fool as well as a street rowdy at the same time. Look at my daughter… she looks like she bathes in milk. Poonam Chandiramani is Miss India. If you were to click a colour photograph of the two of them together, it would still look like black and white. Their pair does not make sense.’ Fortunately, however, they eventually agreed to our union,” he added.
