Still in love with the crush of your life? Join the bandwagon with the crush crusaders who survived their classic crushes

emember your first crush at 16? There you were, misty eyed, emotions on a sticky string, with those hot, pillow-squeezing sleepless nights. All because your heart thump-thumped right out of its rib cage, every time you stole glances at the hunk hitting a six on the cricket field. As the hormones raged, even a casual smile became an earth-shaking experience....

But horrors of horrors, what if your heart does a 360o jerk when we talk about Milind Soman or George Clooney dining at a restaurant or acting up on the movie screen? Girl, you are an eternal romantic and need to either succumb to the sensation or start craft classes. Still, you are not alone. If misery finds its own company, so do crushed-by-love victims...

Red Hot Redford
Ash blonde hair, wind swept forehead, masculine jaw, sky blue eyes... Social activist/actress Nafisa Ali’s heart still does a flip-flop when she talks of hunky Hollywood hero Robert Redford (seen here in ‘Brubaker’) “He’s my one great crush. When I was 17, I saw ‘The Great Gatsby’ and absolutely fell in love with his character. I kept wondering whether such a man really existed on this earth! I was completely in love with the character he portrayed and with the love he had for the woman in the movie. Redford was so suave, so gentle-manly and admirable. I have loved him in all his films since and the admiration continues...

“When I was 21, I was in the US and happened to be in the same restaurant at which Robert Redford was dining. Everyone kept urging me to go and meet him, but I refused, saying, ‘No! He’ll then become human!’ So I just kept sitting there and looking at him and didn’t end up meeting him; now that is also love!
“What does my husband have to say about the one great crush of my life? Well, actually, he’s quite similar in character to Robert Redford in ‘The Great Gatsby’; so I guess, I’m one lucky woman!”

Their Own Saga
First crush met divine providence for Sunita Paul too. A publisher by profession, she remembers meeting a young Turk who was the editor of a theatre magazine called ‘Enact’. “Rajinder Paul and I were 17-year-olds.

This is not to say that Shashi Kapoor (above) and Gregory Peck were not lurking behind. But what happened with Rajinder was too good to be true! Ours was a very cinematic first meeting at the airport. I’d gone to see my brother-in-law, playwright Rakesh Mohan, off and so had Rajinder. In that split second on a Saturday morning, we met and love happened!

There used to be just one airport restaurant in the 1970s called Chefair, where we had our first early breakfast. Three years down the line, we got married. But crushes still continue. With Shashi Kapoor, the issue is whether I still like him with his present weight... I’ve just mourned Gregory Peck. I’m only hoping that the crushes get better and bigger as one gets older and thankfully, there’s always Russel Crowe!”

Romance That Flunked The Test
Blossom Kocchar, aromatherapist and beautician, goes gooey-eyed doing a memory rewind. “There used to be this boy who used to sit next to me in school in std III. His name was Michael Lazarado and we were at Nazareth Convent, Ootacamund. Earlier, he was in a higher class, but then I got a double promotion and we were together. Everything went off well at first, he was very sweet, he really used to take care of me, hold my hand... Until I came first in class. Then he didn’t like me at all!”

Bachelor Boy
Anita Kaul Basu, TV producer with Synergy Communications, shares her crush on the ‘70s King of Soft Pop, Cliff Richards (below). Fantasy proved more fulfilling than meeting the object of her adulation, she rues. “I worshipped him. His posters adorned my walls, every piece of information about him I painstakingly cut and pasted into my scrapbook.

I must have been around 13 or 14, when Paula, a close school friend, called up one Sunday morning and asked me to go to church with her. There was a pleasant surprise waiting for me after the service, she said. I was living in Surrey, England, at the time and even in my wildest dreams couldn’t have guessed that my hero would attend a service at a local church. But there he was, dressed in a greenish suit with a red shirt, shaking hands with the members of the congregation. I still remember shaking hands with him without daring to look up to him.

I mumbled something silly like ‘You’re wearing a nice outfit’... Later, I was so embarrassed with myself for not saying something intelligent. I’ve also had crushes on celebrities like Roger Moore, but once you meet them, the mystique and awe ebbs. You realise that they are normal people — just like you and me.”


Celluloid Crushes
Nothing in life gets larger than men on 70mm. ‘Kathak’ dancer Shovana Narayan found her ideal man in the character played by Clark Gable in ‘Gone With The Wind’. “Rhett Butler has always fired my imagination. Another character I’ve always had a crush on is Gregory Peck in ‘Roman Holiday’. He was so sensitive, so dignified, I’d have loved to have known him. I guess more than people, it is a concept or a character that intrigues me. I don’t think any character could have displayed a sense of loneliness as well as Guru Dutt’s character in ‘Kaagaz Ke Phool’. The fact that everyone is on a lonesome path comes across beautifully through him.”

A Class Act This
Actress Sushma Seth is still in love with the crush of her life; she hitched her wagon to the guy she locked eyes with. “My first big crush was in std X. I had met this handsome person with greenish eyes. He looked like Raj Kapoor and was extremely charming. We started meeting at mixed parties, never alone. We all became a group of eight people.

This was in 1950 and all I can tell you is that eventually, we got married! When it came to people on the silver screen, I admired Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor (below left), who ruled Bollywood in my youth. I always visualised acting with them. I had seen Raj Kapoor’s movies and watched him on stage as a small girl. I admired the magic he created and envied those who acted with him. Later, I did work with him, though sadly, did not star opposite him.”

Wedding Bells Rang
Politician Renuka Chowdhury married her first and only crush. “I was a very arrogant girl, always running about bossing everybody. Come to think of it, I was quite a weirdo. I grew up in military camps and I was the boss’ daughter, everyone lived in terror of me.

I never had any crush on movie stars either. The only crush I had, I went and married. Mine is a very boring story. There is this picture of him and I on my second birthday. I’m all in frills and full of self-importance. Years later, I met him at a party. I was most obnoxious and ignored him. But he announced that he would marry me. Hey, I feel deprived not having had a proper crush. Maybe it’s time to go out and do it now!”