Javed Akhtar's 1st Wife Honey Irani Says He Proposed After She Pulled a Lucky Rummy Card: 'Juya Never Pays...'

Javed Akhtar and Honey Irani’s love story began on the sets of Seeta Aur Geeta where Honey played Hema Malini’s cousin. They fell head over heels and tied the knot in 1972. But their fairy tale took a sharp turn when they divorced in 1985. Javed didn’t stay single for long; he soon married the stunning Shabana Azmi. Despite the split, Javed remained dedicated to co-parenting Farhan and Zoya Akhtar with Honey. In the docu-series, Angry Young Men, Honey Irani opened up on how they got married.

She says, “Javed was playing Rummy with all the actors on the sets. He said, ‘Yaar, I’m losing.’ Kuch 100-200 rupaye haar gaye the, which was a lot at that time, of course. Then he said, ‘You take a card for me.’ So, I pulled a card for him—it was a run card. And he declared, ‘You pulled such a great card for me—I think we are meant for each other. I’m going to propose to you. Let’s get married.’ That’s how it happened. But I should have realized, naa… juya never pays!”

Javed Akhtar, meanwhile, was yet to kickstart his career. It was, in fact, Salim Khan who took his proposal for marriage to Honey Irani’s mother. “This boy wants to marry your girl but he has no home, plays cards and drinks,” he told Honey’s mom, as quoted by The Indian Express.

Meanwhile, Javed said, “Honey is one person in the world towards whom I feel guilty. And she’s the only person. About 60 to 70 person responsibility lies on my shoulder for the failure of that marriage. If I had as much understanding as I have today, perhaps, things would not have gone wrong. It’s very difficult to accept. But that’s how it is.”

Farhan Akhtar also opened up on how he felt “betrayed” by his father but attributed those feelings to his young age. “There was a phase when I was angry with him. I felt betrayed by him. There was all those very normal emotions that I did go through as a child growing up,” he said. Zoya Akhtar added that it took some time for things to fall into place with their father. She added, “After the split happened, we ended living with our mother, we ended up spending more time with our mother. But yeah, it took time to go back to normal with my dad. I think Shabana played a big part in creating that normalcy.”