In the newly released biography Heartfelt, Medha Anup Jalota, (written by veteran film journalist Bharathi S Pradhan), ex-wife of Shekhar Kapur, reveals that it was she who sought a divorce from her husband who was 10 years older to her. So far it was believed that Shekhar separated from Medha after he fell in love with Suchitra Krishnamoorthy. The book is what every official biography should be: it covers all aspects of the subject’s life and is brutally honest without white-washing facts, and it is unputdownable, excerpts...
The problem
Medha’s sister Tani lets on that little things about Shekhar would upset Medha, whose complains with her husband were trivial, “When my guruji comes, he sits pointing his feet at him. He’s not interested in classical music.” Tani says, “I said, you can’t make or break a marriage for reasons like that. But once she made up her mind, she was pretty stubborn about seeing it through. Shekhar, poor fellow, was pretty bemused and had no clue what was happening at first. The break-up didn’t happen in a well-placed, thought-out manner.”
First divorce
Medha vocalises a thought that guided her through life, “When I look around, I find that people are so insecure that they’re unable to accept change easily. They want to remain clinging to their negative situations even though these make them unhappy. They’re afraid of trying out new things which could offer a better version of life. When I wanted to separate from Shekhar, my mother was unhappy. It was the first divorce in the family.
Midway, through our nine or 10-year-old marriage, I knew this was not working out. He was married to himself. When Shekhar and I decided to part, it was I who wanted to break it. So I moved out.”
The decision
Bharathi writes, “When they wanted to reach a decision on the divorce, they went to Samode Palace in Rajasthan for a long weekend. Shekhar wanted to know why they should split when neither was interested in marrying again and he was concerned about how Medha would manage as a single woman. She felt that since they were both going nowhere in this marriage, it would be better to divorce each other. They returned after making up their minds to make it an official, legal split.”
Meeting Anup
The divorce left no emotional scars. Medha recalls, “It was very clean and an easy separation. In fact, we even forgot to get divorced, just like I later forgot to get married to Anupji (Jalota). Our divorce came through six months after I started living with Anupji. I met him in June and in December Shekhar and I went to Delhi to file for our divorce.”
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