When Dharmendra answered if he converted to Islam to marry Hema Malini: ‘I am not the kind of man who will change…’

Hema Malini and Dharmendra got married in 1980 and the union of the two movie stars created a lot of controversy. Dharmendra was already married at the time to Prakash Kaur and had four children – Sunny, Bobby, Ajeeta and Vijaya – and people were curious to know how he could have married another woman while still being married to Prakash. And so, the rumours started floating that the two had changed their religion to Islam, had a nikaah and then and gotten married in a tradition Iyengar ceremony.
As per Hema Malini’s biography ‘Hema Malini: Beyond the Dream Girl’ written by Ram Kamal Mukherjee, there was some chatter about the illegitimacy of Dharmendra and Hema’s marriage under the Hindu Marriage Act as he was already married. The book suggests that rumours about the two stars converting to Islam, changing their names to Dilawar and Ayesha Bi and performing a nikaah in 1979 were everywhere. The rumours returned in 2004 when Dharmendra was contesting for Lok Sabha…