Saira Banu reminisces about her wedding day from hospital bed

Mumbai, Oct 11 (IANS) Veteran actress Saira Banu is getting nostalgic and missing her late husband, the Hindi cinema icon Dilip Kumar on their wedding anniversary on Friday.The actress took to her Instagram, and shared a series of throwback pictures celebrating the union. The last picture in the carousel shows Saira taking a rest on her hospital bed.

She also penned a long note in the caption, describing the day of her union with Dilip Kumar in great detail.

She started off her note as she wrote, “A nostalgic reminisce from the hospital bed of my dream wedding 58 years ago. ‘Do Sitaron Ka Zameen Par Hai Milan Aaj Ki Raat’, that’s what played on the radio all night on the 11th of October, our wedding anniversary, a day I wish had never ended. If someone had told me, ‘O Saira, you’ve got wings for real, you can fly’, I would have believed them without hesitation. That’s how surreal that day felt, 58 autumns ago. Our wedding, as beautiful as it was, was wonderfully chaotic. It was nothing extravagant”.

She shared that her wedding lehenga was stitched at a local darzi’s shop, and their families didn’t even have time to print the wedding invitations as everything happened so quickly.

She further mentioned, “Had we had more time, my mother, Pari Chehra Naseem Banu, would have left no stone unturned, it would have been a parade of designers, jewellers, and what not. Originally the Nikaah was supposed to happen in November, but due to certain reasons, we had to rush. Dilip Sahib, phoned my mother from Kolkata, and said ‘Aap Ek Maulwi Ko Bulwaiye aur Nikaah Padhwa Dijiye’. Nevertheless, the day was filled with humorous little moments”.

She continued, “Dilip Sahib and I lived very close to one another, and when the Baraat arrived at my bungalow, his Ghodi began descending a slope, causing the umbrella on it to keep brushing against Sahib’s Sehra. As we proceeded with the rituals, hordes of fans self invited themselves into my home upon hearing that their beloved actor was getting married”.

She shared that there were so many people that she took two hours to descend from the upper floor just to perform the Nikaah rituals.“And, believe it or not, we even ran short of food. Imagine, the wedding of one of the greatest actors had a shortage of food! And the self-invited fans were collecting wedding souvenirs from downstairs whatever they could find: a spoon, a fork. Oh, it was hilarious", she added.