Dia Mirza, one of the most beautiful actresses of Bollywood, shocked her fans when she announced her separation from husband Sahil Sangha on August 1. The couple had been married for close to five years.
From winning Miss Asia Pacific 2000 title, gaining stardom from her very first film Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein to being actively involved in environmental and social causes, Dia has truly been an inspiration to many.
But did you know, Dia Mirza has gone through a lot during her childhood? In one of her previous interviews, the beautiful actress had spilled her heart out about her parents' divorce, their respective remarriages and her stepfather.
The Lage Raho Munna Bhai actress' biological father Frank Handrich was from Germany and her mother Deepa is a Bengali. However, when Dia was about five years old, her parents got divorced. Soon after Deepa married Ahmed Mirza from Hyderabad. He later died in 2003.
In the interview with Miss Malini, the actress revealed how her father was her hero until she realised her parents' desire to separate. "I was very much attached to my father at the age of 4, he was my hero. In Lage Raho Munna Bhai, the shot where I am talking about how my father has lied to me in the cab with Jimmy (Shergil), on how disappointed I am with that lie, I say he is my Hero. That line came because I always perceived my father as a hero", she said.
When asked how her parents told her about their decision to separate, Dia replied, "Haan, so that's actually a very important one. So in my mind... In the child's mind my family, my parents were ideal. My set-up was ideal. It was perfect. I think I may have seen my parents fight on very few occasions, maybe once or twice. I saw a one really bad fight. But otherwise, I was never really exposed to the fights. So the first thing that I was startled about was their desire to separate".
She further added, "I remember distinctly my mother saying something to me that I will never forget. And I think it was a very early lesson in honesty. She said, "You know two people may love each other a lot. But it doesn't mean they can live together. I love your father a lot. He loves me a lot. But we can't live with each other. Because when we live with each other, we make each other unhappy." And the truth is that I did not fully understand what they were saying. But, I respected it because it was the truth." She further revealed that "What really created a big shift was when both of them decided to remarry and they both married very quickly."
When asked how she felt, Dia replied, "It was very confusing in the beginning but...I think, I just because of the kind of people both my parents remarried and the kind of human beings they both were like my...I hate calling him my stepfather. But I do it so that people don't get confused. But my stepfather was an amazing, amazing human being. They both...my father, my stepfather and my mother consciously decided not to have another child. Because they didn't want to...what they believe traumatize me any further".
After her mother's remarriage, Dia had to move from a half-European home to an Indian Muslim home. Talking about that, she said, "I think the first thing that my stepfather made very clear to me was that he would never take the place of my father. And that he was not my father. He was my friend. And he would only be my father the day, I chose for him to be my father".
Revealing more about her stepmother, Dia said, "I didn't really get much time with her because it was a very, very difficult marriage in the sense that her family was against my father marrying her so they had to kind of go away. The big, big shock was that suddenly one day my father disappeared. He didn't want anybody to find out where he was with her because they were kind of, they had kind of run away. I remember this very short phase when my father had taken this really quaint home in the outskirts of Hyderabad and my stepmother showed up one day to pick me up to take me to him. And I was with them for 15 days and it was the most magical 15 days because she was pregnant. And she was wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. I loved her. They were both very, very good with each other. And I think I was just really happy to see my father happy with her, with my stepmother".
Moving on further, Dia expressed her opinion on children from divorce. "I think children who are in or who live with parents who can't stand each other and make each other's lives miserable would have a bigger problem understanding what a real relationship is. Because they don't see love. And what real love is."
On her advice to many parents out there who are in troubled marriages, Dia retorted, "It's important as parents to recognise the fact that. Yes, your children are important and they mean the world to you and their happiness must mean the world to you. But that can't come at the cost of your own happiness because, at the end of the day, you can never really be happy or give happiness if you're not happy yourself".
