When former actor Neelam saw actor Samir Soni for the first time, she called him “cute,” and a year and a half later, when they spoke for the first time, he said the same thing to her. Neelam and Samir, who have now been married for 13 years, didn’t actually start going out until three years after they first became attracted to each other. In a recent interview, Samir recalled how their love story first started and said that even a tarot card reader had hinted that Neelam would be the woman in his life.
Talking to Ujjawal Tridevi on his YouTube channel, Samir said that he was attending with Mandira Bedi when Neelam saw him for the first time. She was there with her friend, producer Ekta Kapoor, and found him “cute.” Ekta shared this with another friend and through the grapevine, Samir got to know about it. Neelam was one of the most popular actors of the 1980s and early 1990s and getting a compliment from her boosted his self-confidence. “I felt good, but that was it,” he said.
Samir said that soon after this, he met a tarot card reader who told him about a potential life partner, and it was as if he was describing Neelam. “I met someone who was a tarot card reader. I don’t know if she paid him. That person told me that there will be a woman in my life whose name starts with an N and she would be working in jewellery,” he said. At that moment, Samir had a fleeting thought about Neelam, but felt that this was “too much of a coincidence.” After this, Samir started paying attention to Neelam’s photos in the papers, but they never really started talking.
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“At her time, and she still is, one of the prettiest actresses. And my friends would say she is out of your league, don’t even think about it,” he said, and added that one and a half years later, he was at a Diwali party where Neelam was also present, and he finally told Ekta that he was attracted to her. “Ekta introduced us,” he said. “I told Neelam I normally don’t say this but I think you are very cute. Then I said I will call you and I left. I didn’t even have her number. After this another year or so passed,” he recalled.
Samir said that this happened a couple of times, and every time he would say the same thing. Ultimately, three years after she had first seen him, Samir called her. “I asked myself, why am I doing this? I should just talk to her. I called her but she didn’t pick up. It was 3 am. Then next morning my ego kicked in and I texted her. ‘You don’t believe in returning calls,’ and she texted back, ‘How do I know it is you?'”
Samir said that they were very clear that they were looking for a potential spouse in each other. “If we are together, we will marry, so that’s how we looked at each other from the beginning,” he said. The couple tied the knot in 2011, and are parents to a daughter, Ahana. Neelam is one of the celebrities on Netflix’s Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives, and Samir also occasionally appears on the show with her.
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