This was the time when Shah’s parents were receiving lots of marriage offers. “But I was always rejecting them, saying I wasn’t prepared for it,” he says.
This time, however, 24-year-old Neer decided to obey them.
“Upon reaching the venue – the temple inside Balaju Park – I saw a petite looking figure clad in a blue sari,” Shah recalls. She was 17 and had just graduated from St Mary’s School.[break]
“She looked very fair and her long hair was tied in a bun,” Shah describes. “But it was her eyes that attracted me the most. They were big – not exceptionally big, though – and they seemed to be carrying truth in one and honesty in the other. She looked very beautiful.”
On the other hand, Shah looked “horrible.”
“As someone who never liked to put on formal clothes, I was in dark green jeans and a green pullover,” he says. “Years later, she told me she had expected to see me in a suit or something formal.”
The day passed without either of them uttering a single word, except “Hello!” But even silence helped to connect the emotions of the two.
“After that meeting, we both felt we had a very special feeling for each other. I can’t explain what it was, but I had never felt like this for anyone before,” Shah says. “I don’t know the meaning of love, but if that’s how people describe love, then I was in love.”
This feeling encouraged him to take the proposal seriously, and a couple of days later, he called her to give some shape to the “unknown thing.”
“Our talks basically revolved around our interests in food, clothes, music, movies, books, and such stuff,” he says. “And I found her frank, which made our conversation smooth.”
He met her again, this time at her place, and later took her on a date to Nagarkot. That was their first outing together.
“Going on a date then, before marriage, was uncommon. The society was conservative, and girls were restricted from going out with boys on their own. I was happy that her family gave us the opportunity to know each other well,” Shah says.
The visit to Nagarkot turned out to be a fruitful one in “strengthening our budding relationship.” It was also there he found out how simple and down to earth she was.
“During our talks, she often had a difficult time trying to understand my in-depth views on issues. Yet she never pretended to know everything nor boasted of things she wasn’t sure of. This was another of her characteristics which I really liked.”
They also talked about poetry and a couple of songs Shah had penned.
“However, years later when I asked her how she felt that day, she told me she was nervous most of the time. It was because she was out on her first date,” Shah says.
As they met more often, they also started to open up. Around this time, he also discussed his profession which he didn’t want to quit for the sake of marriage. Shah, then, was struggling as an actor in the movie industry.
“It was tough for her as society then hadn’t recognized acting as a respectable profession,” Shah says. “Probably other girls of her caliber would’ve rejected the marriage proposal.
But she fully understood my interests and the situation I was in, and she was comfortable with it. It’s because of these factors that I decided to take her as my life partner.”
Neer Shah and Usha Rana were married on March 5, 1979. They will celebrate their 31st marriage anniversary this year.
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