Love, Faith, and Flashbulbs: The Untold Story of Dharmendra and Hema Malini’s Conversion, Nikah, and the Storm That Followed
Read the full, untold story of Dharmendra and Hema Malini: their 1979 conversion to Islam, nikah as Dilawar Khan & Ayesha Bi, media backlash, legal loopholes, family reactions and how they still live with the headlines today.
1. A Dacoit’s Dulhan: When Cupid Struck on the Sets of Sholay
The year was 1975. Ramgarh’s rocky terrain was witnessing the most famous fictional blood-feud in Indian pop-culture, yet the real drama was unfolding behind the camera. Dharmendra “He-Man” Deol, 39, married for two decades and father of four, found himself rehearsing the “Basanti, tumhara naam kya hai?” scene more times than necessary—just to watch 26-year-old “Dream Girl” Hema Malini blush.
Unit hands recall how the veteran hero would “accidentally” fluff his lines when Hema entered the frame, forcing retakes that bought him five extra minutes of her laughter. It was vintage Bollywood wooing—no WhatsApp, no dating apps, only letters smuggled in film magazines and long drives to Lonavala in a second-hand Fiat.
By the time Sholay wrapped, gossip magazines had coined a new headline-friendly couple portmanteau—“Dremendra.” The only problem? Dharmendra was still very much married to Prakash Kaur, a Delhi-born homemaker who had stood by him when he arrived in Bombay with one suitcase and two pairs of trousers.
2. The Legal Impossibility: Why Divorce Was Never an Option
Under the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955, a second wedding while the first spouse is alive is void and punishable with up to seven years in jail. Mutual-consent divorce did not exist until 1976, and even then, Prakash Kaur—who reportedly believed in the sanctity of her pheras—was in no mood to sign papers.
For Dharmendra, the choice looked binary: walk away from the woman who had shared his struggle, or give up the woman who had become his obsession. He chose door number three—convert to Islam, which permits a man to contract a nikah without dissolving the first marriage.
3. The Secret Shahadah: Inside the 1979 Masjid Near Khar
On 2 May 1979, a white Ambassador with curtained windows pulled up outside the nondescript Quraishi Masjid on Khar 16th Road. Accompanied by two witnesses—producer Asif Chinoy and cinematographer S.M. Anwar—Dharmendra Singh Deol recited the kalma and became Dilawar Khan Kewal Krishn Deol.
Hema Malini, draped in an unbleached cotton burqa to dodge photographers, followed suit minutes later. The maulvi christened her Ayesha Bi R. Chakravarty (the “R” stood for Ramanujam, her Iyengar father’s name).
The nikahnama, written in Urdu on government stamp paper, was signed at 10:47 p.m. The mehr (mandatory dower) was fixed at ₹1.11 lakh—an amount Dharmendra insisted on paying in brand-new ₹100 notes, carried in a brown leather briefcase that once held his gym clothes.
4. “Dilawar & Ayesha”: The Names That Never Made It to Their Passport
Although the conversion was genuine enough for the mosque registry, it never found its way into official documents. Both actors continued to list “Hindu” in their passport religion column. Dharmendra’s 2004 election affidavit to the Election Commission still read “Dharmendra Singh Deol,” not Dilawar Khan.
Friends say the couple toyed with the idea of legally changing names but dropped it when their children—Esha and Ahana—started school. “They didn’t want the girls to answer ‘Why does your papa have two names?’ every year,” reveals a Malini family confidant.
5. Magazine Maelstrom: How Outlook Exposed the Nikah
For 18 years, the conversion remained Bollywood’s worst-kept secret—everyone knew, nobody printed. Then, in 1997, Outlook magazine photojournalist Rauf Ahmed got his hands on a photocopy of the nikahnama. The cover story—“Dilawar Khan’s Second Wife: Hema”—sold out within 48 hours.
Editor Vinod Mehta later admitted they had “three lawyers vet every comma” before going to press. The fallout was instant:
✅Women’s-rights groups burned effigies outside Dharmendra’s Juhu bungalow, calling the conversion a “clever-clever loophole to exploit both Hindu and Muslim personal law.”
✅Shiv Sena’s youth wing filed a police complaint demanding an FIR under Section 494 IPC (bigamy).
✅Film gossip shows on newly-launched Zee TV ran grainy reenactments with silhouetted actors and voice-overs that sounded suspiciously like the real duo.
Through it all, the couple maintained radio silence. Their only response came via a handwritten note faxed to Filmfare: “Some journeys are too personal to be dissected on editorial pages.”
6. “I Never Changed My Faith”: Dharmendra’s 2004 TV Interview
It wasn’t until 2004, when he campaigned for the BJP in Rajasthan, that Dharmendra addressed the elephant in the room. Speaking to Star News, he said:
“Main woh kism ka aadmi nahin hun jo apna mazhab badal de. Shaadi ke liye jo qanooni rasta tha maine woh liya. Mera imaan to hamesha se Hindu raha.”
(“I’m not the kind of man who changes his religion. I took the legal path available for marriage. My faith has always remained Hindu.”)
Critics pounced on the semantic contradiction—how can one recite the kalma and still claim uninterrupted Hindu identity? Defenders argued that Indian law recognises conversion for civil purposes without policing private belief, citing the Supreme Court’s 1995 Sarla Mudgal judgment.
7. Hema’s Side of the Story: “Why Should a Woman Always Explain?”
Hema Malini has been more circumspect. In her 2007 autobiography Dream Girl, she devoted exactly 67 words to the subject:
“Marriage is a sacred institution. Ours was solemnised according to the law of the land. Everything else is between me, my husband and my God.”
During a 2013 India Today conclave, when moderator Koel Purie Rinchet asked if she “regretted” the conversion, Hema shot back:
“Why is it only the woman who must justify her choices? Ask the man who chased me for five years.”
The applause was thunderous, the clip went viral, and the hashtag #AskTheMan trended on Twitter for 36 hours.
8. Prakash Kaur Speaks: The First Wife Who Refused to Be a Victim
Rarely interviewed, Prakash Kaur broke her silence in 2011 to Punjab’s Rozana Spokesman:
“Dharmendra did what he thought was right. I did what I thought was right—stay and bring up my children. Nobody should be judged for surviving.”
Their son Sunny Deol has always walked the diplomatic tightrope. At a 2019 press meet, when asked if his father’s second marriage affected him, he replied:
“We are a joint family in spirit, if not in address. Papa is happy, Hema aunty is respectful, mom is peaceful. That’s enough.”
9. Bringing Up Baby: How Esha & Ahana Navigate Two Households
Raised primarily in their mother’s Chembur bungalow, Esha and Ahana visited Juhu on weekends and festivals. Both girls addressed Prakash Kaur as “Mummy-Ji” and Hema as “Mumma.” Esha told Vogue in 2015:
“We had two kitchens, two wardrobes, two sets of rules—no non-veg at mumma’s, parathas loaded with white butter at daddy’s. I got the best of both worlds.”
Neither daughter inherited the “Dilawar-Ayesha” names. Their wedding cards read “Daughter of Shri Dharmendra Singh Deol & Smt Hema Malini,” a subtle nod to public propriety.
10. Political Aftershocks: When Affidavits Clash with Personal History
In 2019, Hema Malini’s election affidavit listed her religion as “Hindu,” inviting accusatory op-eds about “selective amnesia.” BJP’s IT cell responded with a 2012 video where Hema performs Ganga aarti in Mathura, arguing that her “lifelong Hindu practices” prove the 1979 conversion was “a mere technicality.”
Legal scholars such as Flavia Agnes counter that Indian personal-law jurisprudence allows “re-conversion” without elaborate ritual, making Hema’s current Hindu identity perfectly valid.
11. Pop-Culture Echoes: From Memes to Movie Parodies
✅2014: Comedy Nights with Kapil featured a skit where “Dharmendra” forgets whether he is “Dilawar” for the nikah or “Dharam” for the vote.
✅2020: Twitter trended #DilawarKiBasanti after a leaked WhatsApp forward claimed the couple would “renew vows” under the new Uniform Civil Code draft.
✅2022: Amazon Prime’s The Boys Hindi dub inserted a meta-reference: “Even Dilawar Khan needed a second wife; why can’t we reboot Sholay?”
12. The Larger Debate: Love-Jihad, Polygamy, and Bollywood’s Double Standards
The Dharmendra-Hema episode is routinely weaponised in contemporary “love-jihad” debates. Right-wing panels replay the 1979 nikah as Exhibit A of “wealthy Hindu men opting for halal loopholes,” while liberal commentators cite it to argue for a gender-neutral uniform civil code.
What often gets lost is the human quandary: two adults trapped between a 1950s marriage law and a 1970s romance. Their solution—conversion—was less theological than tactical, a civil hack rather than a spiritual home-coming.
13. Their Lives Today: Sunrise Years and Sunset Silences
Now 88 and 75, Dharmendra and Hema split time between Juhu’s Ramkrishna Mission bungalow and a farm in Lonavala. Morning puja bells mingle with evening azaan from a nearby mosque—an unintended sonic metaphor for their intertwined yet separate spiritual identities.
Asked last year if he would do anything differently, Dharmendra told Film Companion:
“Zindagi doosron ke nazariye se jeene ki koshish mat karo. Dil ne kaha, qanoon ne rasta diya, main chal pada.”
(“Don’t live life trying to satisfy other people’s viewpoints. My heart spoke, the law showed a way, I walked on.”)
14. Takeaways for the Curious Reader
- Conversion ≠ Belief: Indian law treats religious identity for marriage as a jurisdictional switch, not a cosmic re-birth.
- Silence as Strategy: By refusing endless clarification, the couple denied the media a feedback loop.
- Polygamy Is Class-Blind: The rich hire lawyers; the poor face lynch mobs.
- Women Bear the Brunt: Hema still fields more questions than Dharmendra, proving patriarchy loves a spectacle but hates complexity.
15. Epilogue: A Love Story Written in Footnotes
History will likely remember Dharmendra and Hema Malini as the pair who danced on tank-tops and delivered the most iconic dialogue in Hindi cinema. Yet, tucked away in mosque registries, magazine archives and election affidavits, their other names—Dilawar and Ayesha—linger like half-remembered couplets, reminding us that in India, love seldom conquers law; it negotiates with it.
%20Instagram.png)
0 Comments