Long before Anupam Kher and Kirron Kher became one of Bollywood’s most enduring couples, his girlfriend’s letters were quietly arriving at Kirron’s home, and neither thought much of it. Looking back, Anupam finds quiet irony in the detail. As he told Times Now, “That’s why I say ‘kuch bhi ho sakta hai’. I had no idea that one day we would fall in love and get married.” Forty-one years on, that disbelief has curdled into something warmer: gratitude.
From Chandigarh theatre to Mumbai struggles
The two first met at the Department of Indian Theatre in Chandigarh, where Kirron was a year his senior and already a figure of some standing among students. Recounting his first impressions to Times Now, Anupam said, “She was a star. She played badminton (doubles) for India with her sister, and did English plays. I never even thought something would ever happen with her. But she had the largest heart.”
Their friendship deepened after both relocated to Mumbai. Kirron was then married to businessman Gautam Berry, while Anupam was still trying to carve out a place in the industry. He recalled, alongside fellow struggler Satish Kaushik, a particular ritual of those lean years: “When I came to Bombay, she was married to Gautam. Satish Kaushik and I used to go to her house, and we would tell her that we would only visit you if you would give us the return taxi fare. So we used to take the taxi fare from her and then take a bus so that we could survive the week,” he told.
Compassion, mutual respect, kindness and friendship
The shift from friendship to romance came slowly, shaped by mutual vulnerability. Anupam said, “Kirron was a friend for a long time, till a possibility happened where I was going through a breakup and she was going through a tough time with her husband.” They married in 1985 after Kirron separated from Berry. Kirron has a son, actor Sikandar Kher, from her first marriage.
In an earlier interview with Filmfare, Anupam spoke about what actually sustains a marriage across four decades: “In a marriage of 40 years, it is very difficult to be only good. There are disappointments. My parents were married for 59 years; it was not the best marriage. The best of marriage is to have mutual respect for the other person.” He also described the equality that marks their dynamic: “There is no ‘aap’. We are like equals. We don’t have a filmy atmosphere at my house.”
In a candid exchange with journalist Shubhankar Mishra, Anupam also acknowledged something he rarely voices, that in recent years he has occasionally wondered what it might have been like to have had a child with Kirron. “It’s not a tragedy in my life. But I sometimes feel it would have been a nice thing,” he admitted.
Through all the years, the separations, and the small absurdities of two lives lived at full tilt, Anupam said that what has never left them is this: “An amazing amount of compassion, mutual respect, kindness and friendship. It is the most important thing.”
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