The story of Raj Kapoor, one of Bollywood’s most iconic figures, is incomplete without mentioning his deep connection with Nargis, the actress who was both his muse and the love of his life.
Their long-standing affair, which captivated the film industry, ended in heartbreak for Kapoor when Nargis married actor Sunil Dutt in 1958 - a union that left Kapoor devastated and feeling betrayed.
According to Madhu Jain’s book The Kapoors: The First Family of Indian Cinema, Kapoor, often referred to as Bollywood’s ‘First Showman,’ struggled to come to terms with Nargis’s marriage to Dutt, despite her enduring loyalty to him over the years.
She had even sought advice from politician Morarji Desai on the possibility of marrying Kapoor, who was already married. Kapoor, however, saw her decision to marry Dutt as a profound betrayal, a sentiment he expressed to journalist Suresh Kohli, lamenting, “The world tells me I let Nargis down. It was she who betrayed me.”
The book details how Kapoor reacted to the news of Nargis’s marriage with intense emotional pain.
He reportedly broke down in front of friends and colleagues, unable to believe she had married someone else. Kapoor’s grief was so overwhelming that he allegedly burned himself with cigarette butts to ensure he wasn’t dreaming, questioning how she could have left him.
Kapoor’s wife, Krishna Raj Kapoor, revealed in an interview with author Bunny Reuben that his drinking worsened after the breakup. Night after night, he would return home drunk, collapsing in the bathtub and weeping bitterly. “Do you think I thought he was weeping for me? No. Of course not. I knew he was weeping for her,” she confessed, acknowledging the depth of Kapoor’s love for Nargis.
Even years later, Kapoor couldn’t let go of the pain. A friend noted that Nargis was his only true love, and he never spoke ill of her publicly, instead blaming her brothers for creating a rift between them. In private, he often referred to her marriage as ‘a great betrayal.’
Despite the heartbreak, Kapoor reportedly kept Nargis hopeful for years, repeatedly telling her that he would marry her someday. But Nargis, who longed to be a wife and mother, grew increasingly restless. Her desire for the sanctity of marriage was so strong that she sought legal advice from Morarji Desai on how to marry Kapoor, a Hindu who was already married.
The turning point in their relationship came when Nargis signed on for Mother India without consulting Kapoor. It was on the set of this film that she fell in love with Sunil Dutt after he heroically saved her from a fire. Their marriage in 1958, before the film’s release, marked the end of an era.
Years later, when Nargis attended Rishi Kapoor’s wedding, she was invited by Krishna Raj Kapoor, who ensured that she felt welcome. Rishi Kapoor, in his autobiography Khullam Khulla, reflected on how his father’s infidelities had impacted their family, underscoring the enduring influence of Raj Kapoor and Nargis’s tragic love story on their lives.