Bollywood is full of heartbreak stories but sometimes the real-life stories are much more painful than the scripted ones which we watch in movies.
One such story is of late veteran actor Om Puri and his first wife Seema Kapoor. During an interview, Seema opened up about how her short marriage of just eight months ended in a very painful way. She said Om Puri fell in love with another woman when she was pregnant with his child.
Seema said that everything was perfectly fine after their marriage but everything changed when Om Puri started shooting for the film ‘City of Joy’. She said that the film turned her life upside down because it was on the sets of the movie that Om Puri met journalist Nandita. He later married Nandita and had a son with her.
What hurt Seema even more was that many people close to them already knew about the affair. She said her good friend, editor Renu Saluja, who was Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s first wife, and filmmaker Sudhir Mishra and others knew what was happening. But they did not tell her because they thought it was not a serious matter.
The truth finally came out when Seema was in Delhi. Om Puri himself called her and confessed that he was seeing someone else. At first, her friends told her that he might just be seeking attention but Seema said she could understand from his voice that it was serious. Even after that, when she came back to Mumbai, she still wanted to save the marriage. But her hope was completely broken when she found love letters of the other woman among Om Puri’s things.
She said she was completely shattered. She never wanted a divorce. Since she was pregnant, she wanted to fix everything. She said Om Puri knew about her pregnancy but that made Nandita insecure. She said the situation at home became very difficult because Om Puri used to drink a lot and that led to regular fights.
Finally, Seema understood that she had to leave. One night, she decided to walk out and she was three months pregnant at that time. She still had a small hope that he would miss her and things would become normal but it was not easy. Sadly, after that, her baby did not survive.
Her pain did not end there. After she lost the baby, Om Puri didn’t even come to meet her or comfort her. Instead, he sent Rs 25,000 through his secretary but Seema refused to take the money. She said what his secretary called ego was actually her self-respect.
She also revealed that her brother, actor Annu Kapoor, wanted to take legal action against Om Puri. Later, she received Rs 6 lakh as alimony but she said no amount of money could heal the emotional pain she went through. Many years later, just a short time before his de*th, Om Puri called Seema one last time and said sorry for everything he had done.
Om Puri p@ssed aw@y in 2017 at the age of 66 due to a heart attack.
