Naseeruddin Shah has addressed his marriage with Ratna Pathak Shah and why the actress never thought of converting to Islam.
Amid the growing debate of love jihad, actor Naseeruddin Shah has addressed his own inter-faith marriage in a new open letter and revealed that his wife - actress Ratna Pathak Shah - never considered converting to Islam. Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak met in 1975, during rehearsals of Satyadev Dubey’s play Sambhog se Sanyas Tak. The couple has been married for the last 41 years.
Recently, Naseeruddin wrote an open letter in which he candidly described the history of their interfaith union. He voiced his displeasure with the current political climate, which has unnecessarily raised questions about his marriage. "I had no compunctions or hesitation about marrying a Hindu, and vice-versa. I didn’t dream that some put-out-to-pasture spouse of an ex-cabinet minister would, 38 years after my marriage, threaten me with ‘no one said anything when you married outside your religion’, stopping short of accusing me of love jihad but clearly implying that my time was now up," he said in the open letter published in the National Herald.
Many years ago, the actor had discussed his situation with his mother who, not only agreed to the union but also didn't mind Ratna's decision to remain a Hindu. He recalled, "As it happened, the subject of my wife Ratna converting to Islam was brought up just once by my mother and that as enquiry, to which on receiving a reply in the negative, she concurred with a “Haan, mazhab kaise badla jaa sakta hai (Yes, how can faith be changed)”. Whether this statement of a woman weaned exclusively on a diet of the Quran makes more sense than the hate-filled rhetoric of ‘Hindus and Muslims cannot live together’, I will leave to the judgement of the reader."
In an earlier interview, Naseeruddin Shah had said that Ratna's family didn't initially support their union, not because of his faith but rather because they thought he was a "ill-tempered drug addict."
Naseeruddin and Ratna had tied the knot in 1982 after seven years of dating. The actors had crossed paths at the National School Of Drama, and fell in love shortly after. Currently, the couple has two sons Vivaan Shah and Imaad Shah.
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 "Naseeruddin Shah with wife Ratna Pathak Shah")
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