Raj Kapoor never left wife Krishna for lover Nargis because...

Raj Kapoor's cinematic journey was one for the books and so was his personal life. Whether onscreen or in real life, Raj Kapoor justified his "greatest showman" personality. Over the years, along with his filmmaking, Raj Kapoor's personal life became fodder for sensational news. His relationships with his female costars, especially his extramarital affair with Nargis, grabbed the most attention. Both Raj Kapoor and Nargis never publicly acknowledged their affair but his son Rishi Kapoor confirmed in his autobiography that Raj Kapoor was involved with several female co-stars despite being married to his mother, Krishna Malhotra.

Once during an interview, Raj Kapoor also spoke about the affair without naming Nargis, referring to her as "the actress". Raj Kapoor and Nargis first met when she was only 16. The former was already a married man with children at the time. 

Raj Kapoor said in a documentary produced by Prasar Bharti, "She was very young. Angelic, absolutely… What a great actress she was. Films, for me, meant a complete, absolute, dedicated devotion and belonging. So, anybody and anything that revolved around it very much became a part of my being. And I must say that (Nargis) contributed a lot to what RK (Studio) is." 

Raj Kapoor also accepted that he never intended to marry Nargis, leaving his wife Krishna behind. "Right from the very beginning, from the word go, I drew a line. And it’s a very, very straight fact that my wife is not my actress and my actress is not my wife. By my wife, I mean the mother of my children. So, my home life, somewhere or the other, was there. Krishna was the mother of my children. While here was my actress. She would share and have that satisfaction of having contributed to my creativity. That is her satisfaction," he said. 

Raj Kapoor further said, "Neither did I try to put across my wife to be my actress, or my actress to be my wife. And that is one big saving grace which balanced… We kept on working over the years, with all the intensity. Because, to each his own, whatever belonged to one, one had it. One did not feel in any manner playing second fiddle, no! You are absolutely supreme where you belong. And then, another thing, the understanding part of it. Each one understood, and nobody cheated anybody. The mother of my children wasn’t meant to be my actress, so she didn’t feel cheated. I didn’t feel that way. And similarly, the actress came into me being my actress, not the mother of my children.”

Nargis felt a deep love for Raj Kapoor but eventually accepted that he would never leave Krishna for her. Nargis then went on to marry Sunil Dutt in 1958, which Raj Kapoor saw as a betrayal. As per 'The Kapoors: The First Family of Indian Cinema', a book written by Madhu Jain, Raj Kapoor once told journalist Suresh Kohli, “The world tells me I let Nargis down. It was she who betrayed me.”

The book further revealed how Raj Kapoor was shattered by her marriage. "He broke down and cried in front of his friends and colleagues when he found out that she had married Sunil Dutt. Raj Kapoor took it very badly: he would reportedly burn himself with cigarette butts to check if he was not dreaming, wondering how she could have done this to him."

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