In 1980, amid considerable controversy, Dharmendra and Hema Malini married—despite him being married to Prakash Kaur.

The backlash was intense, and for the first and only time, Prakash spoke to the media. She told Stardust, “Dharmendra is

not a perfect husband, but he is a wonderful father. Hemaji is very beautiful; any man could be attracted to her.”

Following this, she and Hema chose to maintain distance from Hema, despite having met each other on earlier occasions.

Hema, in turn, respected that boundary and never interfered in Dharmendra’s responsibilities toward his first family or

his decision to continue living with them. In a 1999 interview with Simi Garewal, the actress explained that she never

tried to compete with Prakash or disrupt Dharmendra’s existing home. “You love a person so much, and you get so much

love from that person—so how can you torture that person for such petty things?” she said. “I never irritated him or

troubled him. I understood his problem. When I give so much, I get so much.”

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Asked whether she felt resentment toward Prakash or the other family, Hema replied, “Not at all. That’s why I’m the

happiest person today. What is the point of torturing someone you love?”

She attributed her acceptance to her clear understanding of Dharmendra’s circumstances from the start, choosing to

honour the reality rather than resist it. In her biography Hema Malini: The Dream Girl, authored by Ram Kamal Mukherjee,

she elaborated, “I didn’t want to disturb anyone. I am happy with whatever Dharamji did for me and my daughters. He

played the role of a father, like any father would.” She added, “I have maintained my dignity because I devoted my life

to art and culture. Though I have never spoken about Prakash, I respect her a lot. Even my daughters respect Dharamji’s

family.”

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Despite living just minutes apart, Hema and Prakash never crossed paths. The only exception came in 2015, when Esha Deol

visited Dharmendra’s ailing brother Ajit Singh Deol, to whom she was very close. During that visit, she briefly

encountered Prakash and touched her feet. “She blessed me and I walked away,” Esha recalled in the biography.