Bollywood star Dharmendra’s family story is quite unusual. When he married famous actress Hema Malini in 1980, he was already married to another woman, Prakash Kaur. From that first marriage, he had four children: Sunny Deol, Bobby Deol, Vijeta Deol, and Ajeita Deol. But his daughters with Hema Malini, Esha and Ahana Deol, did not know about this until much later.A classmate’s question changed everythingEsha Deol, daughter of Hema Malini and Dharmendra, had a typical school day turned upside down when a classmate asked her something completely unexpected, “You have two moms, right?”In Hema Malini’s biography, ‘Hema Malini: Beyond the Dream Girl’, by Ram Kamal Mukherjee, Esha recalled saying, “What rubbish! I have only one mother.” After school, she told her mother what had happened. This was the moment Hema Malini decided it was time to tell her daughters the truth about their family.Esha shared, “The moment I reached home, I told my mom that a friend was asking me this question. I think it was at that point in time that my mom decided to tell me the truth. Imagine, we were in the fourth standard and had no idea about anything.”She then understood that her mother had married a man who was already married to another woman and had a family with her. But Esha said she never felt upset about this. “But frankly speaking, I never felt bad about it. To this day, I don’t think there is anything wrong with it. I give full credit to my parents for not making us ever feel uncomfortable.”Growing up Esha also noticed that having a father around was not something she was used to. She realised this when she visited her friends’ houses. “When I was younger, I used to go to my friends’ houses where I would see both parents being around. That’s when I realised that it’s normal to have dads around too.”Despite this, she felt happy and loved. “But somehow, we were groomed in a way that it didn’t affect me much. I was very content with my mother, and I loved my father,” she said.
