Actor Zarina Wahab reflected on her nearly four-decade-long marriage with Aditya Pancholi, whom she married just 15 days after their first meeting. In an interview, Zarina addressed various aspects of their relationship, including Aditya’s infidelity and allegations of abuse made against him by his girlfriends.
Aditya Pancholi converted to Islam?
Despite these controversies, she described him as a kind and caring husband and father. She also discussed how their differing religious backgrounds never posed challenges in their marriage and shared that while Aditya did not convert to Islam, he adopted a new name for their *nikaah* ceremony.
In an interview with Lehren Retro, Zarina recounted the beginning of their relationship. “In those days, they used to make video films for VHS. They offered me one, but I was offended. I had no intention of doing it, but they told me that it’ll be like a proper film, and I didn’t want to offend anybody, so I agreed. That’s where I met Nirmal (Aditya’s birth name) for the first time. He was a good-looking boy, younger to me. You will not believe it, we were married within 15-20 days. It was written in my destiny to meet my husband, because I didn’t even want to do the film.”
36 years of marriage with Aditya Pancholi
When asked if their differing religions ever created issues, Zarina remarked, “When I got married to him, everyone said, ‘He’s so handsome, he’s so young, this won’t last more than five months.’ But now it has been 36 years. Look around, there are so many temples in my house. I do the namaaz. We don’t distinguish on the basis of religion in our house, there are no differences, we have everything we need… Even my in-laws are very nice. There were no hurdles.”
Zarina revealed details about their nikaah ceremony, clarifying, “He didn’t convert, but like it is with Muslims, he had to change his name, so he did that.”
Religion never came between
The couple named their daughter Sana after a character they encountered in a Pakistani show, while their son was named Sooraj after Aditya’s character in one of his films. Zarina emphasized that there were no debates about choosing Islamic or Hindu names for their children, as both Sana and Sooraj were given the freedom to discover their own religious paths. She concluded, “Religion has never come between us, not even Nirmal; he’s such a sweetheart.”
