'Salman is very fond of Azhar'

Sreemoyee Piu Kundu / TNN / Nov 2, 2005, 20:28 IST

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Former model/actor and current-day entrepreneur Sangeeta Bijlani talks about love, life and not knowing cricket...

Former model/actor and current-day entrepreneur Sangeeta Bijlani talks about love, life and not knowing cricket...
There's a palpable sense of serenity surrounding former model and actor Sangeeta Bijlani a calm after a string of highly publicised personal relationships. "I nurse no regrets. I'm a very content person today," says the ex Miss India. So, what brings her to the city?
"Both, me and Azhar (she married the former Indian captain Mohammed Azharuddin in 1997) have a home here as well.

I like the fact that I can enjoy the best of both the worlds," says Bijlani, who has been missing from the social scene for a while now.
"My mother expired and for the last six months I've been spending a lot of time with my father," she adds.

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A poignant silence later, Sangeeta moves on to discuss her pet project her high-end gym tucked away in Banjara Hills, Hyderabad. "Initially, when we started, Hyderabad lacked a wellequipped gym and Azhar told me, 'this is your baby, do what you want with it'," says the proud entrepreneur.
But doesn't she miss the glam world? Sangeeta muses, "I feel nostalgic, but then I've been fortunate to work with some of the biggest banners in the country."

It was on one of these commercial shoots that she met actor Salman Khan and they went on to share a tumultuous relationship. This association turned out to be ill-fated (with Khan's affair with starlet Somy Ali supposedly causing the final rift), but Sangeeta insists, "It's all destiny.
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Besides, today, we share a very cordial relationship. We aren't enemies. In fact, Salman is very fond of Azhar and when we are in Mumbai, he often invites us over."
But, how was it to date the then captain of the Indian cricket team a much married man? "Azhar was 'single' when we started seeing each other," she reiterates, dismissing all the rumours of her breaking up his marriage to Nausheen.
"People have always made up stories and honestly, we were as oblivious then as we would be now," she clarifies. So, how did the fair maiden bowl over the crafty batsman? "I was clueless about cricket... I used to meet Azhar socially and what attracted me to him was his gentle nature.
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My friends teased me that I should learn the finer nuances of the game and later, even, Azhar used to sit drawing maps for me explaining what 'silly point' and 'gully' meant.
After we came together, I started following the game, but even now I don't confess to being a cricket obsessed fan," she states.
Was she ever affected with the mud slinging which followed their link up? "I think we've both grown... besides, both of us were mature adults who'd been there, done that.
We'd been exposed to the limelight and I think we just went about living our lives the way we wanted to," says Sangeeta, who feels it's her 'inner strength' that's helped her tide over many storms in her chequered personal life.
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Case in point the 2000 betting scam which ended 37-year-old Azharuddin's career. "When Azhar faced all those allegations, we just took things in our stride. After all, life can't always be a bed of roses..." she philosophises.
sreemoyee.kundu@timesgroup.com

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