The curious case of two Kumars: Dilip, Dileep, and their Saira Banus

Mumbai, Nov 20 (IANS) Grammy and Oscar-winning music composer A. R. Rahman and his wife Saira Banu are headed for a divorce. The couple stayed together 29 years, completing silver jubilee and were just short of clocking 3 decades of marital bliss.

The divorce was apparently initiated by Rahman’s wife, and points to growing indifference between the couple.

However, Rahman and his marriage has an interesting connection with the late actor Dilip Kumar. Rahman, who was born A. S. Dileep Kumar, converted to Islam at the age of 23, and was married to Saira Banu, the namesake of Dilip Kumar’s wife. While the actor couple stayed together until the passing away of Dilip Kumar, Rahman and his wife parted ways after 29 years.

Also, while Rahman converted to Islam and changed his name, Dilip Kumar was born Muhammad Yusuf Khan and changed his name to appeal to a wider audience.

Earlier, Saira’s wife Vandana Shah had shared the cause of the marriage breakdown in the glamour world.

She spoke in general about marriage and its dynamics in the film industries in an old video, “One is boredom in a marriage because you have seen it all. They move on from one marriage to the other because of boredom. And that is very very sort of peculiar to Bollywood and super rich families. You know, so I feel that is one thing which I have not seen in a lot of other marriages. Secondly, I think they live very very different sexual lives”.

She added, “I think that the expectations from a sex life are much higher in these set-ups than may be in a normal person's marriage. The main issues are boredom, and ‘I am not being given enough importance’”.