The love child: Living life without regrets

Early this year, business honcho Adam Dell sued supermodel Padma Lakhsmi for the full custody of their love child Krishna. She had never announced the father’s name when she was pregnant.

More recently, Hollywood actor-turned-politico Arnold Schwarzenegger was reported to have had a love child outside his wedlock. Closer home, even if they try to shrug that tag off, the love children of Bollywood know that it is going to chase them till they carve a niche out for themselves in the industry. Till they do that, they are often only identified as kids born out of wedlock. And the most celebrated love children in India include designer Masaba Gupta and actor Prateik Babbar.

Masaba admits that for a long time the only thing people were interested in was her high profile father, cricketer Sir Vivian Richards.

“There was tremendous interest around me. I don’t know whether it was because of my exotic looks or for the fact that I was the daughter of Vivian Richards, but it is true that this was one of the reasons I realised that I have to do something on my own,” says Masaba, who neither became an actor nor a sportsperson, but chose garment designing instead.

Though actor Prateik reportedly doesn’t care about it too much, he has spoken in the past about being a love child and till reportedly remains estranged with his step brothers. Actor Raj Babbar walked out of his family to be with actress Smita Patil and Prateik was born.

“All the films in which my mother and father have acted together are their best movies for me. I never really got to see them spend time together, so when I see them on screen I feel this is how they were in person. I feel this is how our family would have been with them,” the actor had told DNA before his Bollywood debut.