Aruna Irani Breaks Down At Kuku Kohli's Funeral: Inside Their 32-Year Love Story

Add as a preferred source on Google

Aruna Irani arrived at the Oshiwara crematorium on Wednesday morning looking nothing like the composed veteran Bollywood has watched for over six decades. Dressed in white, she was seen breaking down as she stepped out of her car, the grief visible before she'd even reached the gates. Her husband, director Kuku Kohli, was being cremated after dying of a sudden heart attack two days earlier, at the age of 77.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Filmmaker Ashoke Pandit, who confirmed Kohli's death, later told a media house that the director had no known illness before the massive heart attack that killed him. Members of the film fraternity, including younger stars who owed their careers to Kohli's generation of directors, gathered for the last rites. For Irani, though, the day wasn't about the industry's loss. It was about the man she married in secret, and stood by for more than three decades.

An Unlikely Beginning On A Film Set

Their story didn't start as a romance. Irani and Kohli met through the industry in 1990, when he was directing her in a project, and by most accounts, they could not stand each other at first. Kohli reportedly kept her waiting on set for hours over single shots, and their clashing schedules turned into frequent friction. Somewhere in that irritation, though, something shifted - the arguments gave way to an unexpected friendship, and the friendship deepened into something neither of them had planned for.

Irani was 40 at the time, and freshly out of a long, complicated relationship with actor Mehmood, who was also married. She wasn't looking for another entanglement with a man who already had a wife and two young daughters. But Kohli's first marriage, to Rita Kohli, was already strained, and the connection between him and Irani kept pulling them back together.

A Marriage Kept Hidden For Years

The two married quietly in 1990, without any public announcement. Irani has said in later interviews that she never spoke about it, not because she was ashamed, but because Kohli was still legally married and his wife would visit film sets with their children. She insisted the relationship was never about breaking up a home.

"But he fought the world to marry me," Irani has said, describing how difficult it was for the couple to build a life together under public scrutiny. It was only after Rita Kohli passed away that Irani began openly acknowledging the marriage, decades after the wedding itself. She and Kohli never had children together, choosing instead to build their family around his two daughters, Pooja and Karishma. bollywoodshaadis

Kohli, born Avtar Kohli, is remembered in the industry for launching Ajay Devgn with his 1991 debut Phool Aur Kaante, and for directing a string of hits through the 1990s, including Kohraam, Suhaag and Zulmi. But at his funeral, the loudest tribute wasn't a film credit. It was the sight of his wife, unable to hold back tears, saying goodbye to the man she'd once refused to get along with.