The apple of their eyes

Ashok Kumar meets his young nephew Sumit as Kishore Kumar and Leena Chandavarkar-the doting parents-look on.
As Anurag Basu gears up to make a biopic on actor, lyricist, composer, producer, director, screenplay writer and scriptwriter Kishore Kumar, here is one of the real-life love stories the funnyman starred in. She was a widow and he was thrice married. The age difference between them was 21 years-she was mere two years older than his son. Their lives were not meant to intersect, not in the way it eventually did.
 Although it didn't take Kishore too long to convince Leena, her father was dead set against the match. The singer went all the way to Dharwad, where Leena's parents stayed and almost held a dharna in front of their house, singing on top of his voice. It was Nafrat karne walon ke seene mein pyar bhar doon (Johny Mera Naam) that finally melted the heart of the patriarch and Jhumroo got married to the Manchali actress in 1980. Two years later, the couple became proud parents of a boy, Sumit Kumar. Although, Leena first saw Kishore while shooting for her debut film Man ka Meet in 1968, it was a brief encounter. It was not until 1979 that the actress finally was introduced to the legend. It was purely for professional reasons...or so Kishore Kumar insisted! The versatile madcap genius wanted the actress to go through the script of his Pyar Ajnabi Hai. It was while working on the film that the two came closer. But, the starry-eyed actress was not in love with the star, not yet. The death of her first husband Siddharth Bandodkar was still fresh in her mind.