No five-year itch for Zayed Khan

Soumyadipta Banerjee
“A little bit of a jealousy does good to the relationship,” jokes actor Zayed Khan when we ask him about the state of his marriage now that he is completing five years of being married to his childhood sweetheart Mallika Parekh.
“Oh come on! When there’s a little bit of jealousy and possessiveness, it means that she loves you a lot. It’s love that makes you jealous, isn’t it?” says Zayed.
He jests even more when you ask him whether his wife is okay with girls drooling over him at parties. Does she get jealous if she finds him flirting with chicks? “Bad question to ask a husband. A good husband never does that. On a serious note, it’s truly been a wonderful journey for me and Mallika has stuck to me through thick and thin. The best result is of course my son (Zidaan, who is three years old). He is my world and he occupies every bit of our space. Now that he is old enough, he just doesn’t stop talking,” says the actor, who has just turned film-maker and has opened a production house with fellow actor Dia Mirza.
So, is he planning to take childhood friend Esha Deol in one of his movies? “There seems to be some confusion about it. Esha was never my classmate. I guess we were both in Jamnabai (Jamnabai Narsee School, Juhu) but she was in class five when I was in class eight. Then I moved to another other school for my 10th. But since we all used to live in the same locality, we would bump into each other though we were not in the same group,” he says.
Talking about turning film-maker, Zayed says that he is taking one thing at a time. “I have just announced my first film. I can’t say about my future plans because we haven’t made our long terms plans yet. But yes, now that I have jumped into the fray we would like to make some movies that will make people happy,” he ends.
s_banerjee@dnaindia.net