"Can you believe it? Fifteen years of marriage and we are still deeply madly in love. We are still like we were in the courtship days," Namrata Shirodkar says, looking back with gratitude at her marriage to Telugu superstar Mahesh Babu.
“Mahesh and I met on the sets of a film called Vamsi," Namrata says.
"It’s the only film I did with him and it's the worst film in both our careers! But we will be ever grateful to Vamsi, that’s where we met. I immediately knew this was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Of course, Mahesh’s family was sceptical of me. They had nothing against me but they knew nothing about me or my life as an actress in Mumbai. Come to think of it, even my parents were sceptical of Mahesh," she adds.
Namrata and Mahesh had to wait four years before getting married.
“It was very important for Mahesh to convince his family that I was the right one for him. For four years, I just had to wait. We hardly met during those four years. All I had to do was wait for Mahesh to win over his family. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have my bouts of anxiety then. But I was sure I wanted to marry only Mahesh, and he was sure too."
Namrata says 15 years of marriage have just flown by.
"My days are so full I don’t know when I wake and when I sleep. And you know what? I wouldn’t choose any other life for myself. My husband and my two children are my world," she says.
"I am asked if I crave for me-time, I don’t. I don’t want time with gal pals. I don’t want time away from Mahesh. Even if he’s gone for two days, I miss him. I don’t have the energy or craving for expeditions and adventures outside my marriage. Do I look after Mahesh’s career? His endorsements, yes. Not his films. It's a myth that I choose his scripts. If I had any script sense, I wouldn’t have done some of the awful films that I did during my brief career in Hindi cinema."
Any unfulfilled wish?
"None. My life with Mahesh is a dream. I just don’t to wake up one day to realise it was just a dream. I want my children to value marriage and its obligations as much as Mahesh and me. Agreed, there is a lot of hanky-panky in the entertainment industry but Mahesh and I have eyes only for one another."
