Actress Aarya Babbar has spoken candidly about her relationship with her late actor father Raj Babbar Smita Patilsaying that although the chapter had once brought pain to the family, those who participated had long since left. Raj Babbar married theater personality Nadira Babbar when he fell in love with Smita Patil. Raj and Nadira share two children, Aarya and Juhi, and Raj and Smita adopted a son Prateik Babbar together Smita passed away in 1986 shortly after giving birth, and Raj eventually reunited with Nadira.Aarya reflected on her childhood at a time when her father’s personal life was much discussed. “I was only three or four years old then, so I don’t remember exactly what was going on at home when Smita maa entered my father’s life,” said Aarya. “People often ask me how I feel, but there’s not much to say now. Even today, everyone still carries those emotions,” he said in an interview with Vickey Lalwani. He said that despite all that Raj Babbar and his family had achieved over the years, the public’s attention remained fixed on one aspect of their lives.“Today, I am 44 years old. This happened when I was four or five years old. My father achieved a lot in life after that, and so did our family. But somehow, the biggest thing that remained connected to our lives was that my father had a relationship, falling in love and giving dignity to that relationship. That became the defining theme of our lives. Because we have moved on from leisure, we all want to move on. move on, everyone else should move on,” he said. Aarya admits that no child will be comfortable hearing conversations about their parents’ affair, but adds that she no longer holds any grudges.“What kid would like to hear that their dad had an affair? But it happened, and now it’s okay. Dad moved on too, he had another affair,” she joked. “You shouldn’t carry so much emotional baggage about everything in life.”When asked about the rumor of Raj Babbar’s relationship with Rekha, Aarya responded carefully. “If you ask me Rekha was attracted, she is very beautiful, who won’t be attracted? Won’t you be attracted? I would be attracted. So if she was attracted, she was attracted. She’s human. What’s wrong?”Recalling that phase of their lives, Aarya shared that Raj Babbar had temporarily moved away and was living with Smita Patil.“He moved out of the house and stayed with Smita maa. In fact, he bought the Rock Cliff house, where Prateik lives now,” he said.When asked if Raj Babbar had formally ended his marriage with Nadira Babbar during that period, Aarya refused to discuss the details, saying she wanted to be respectful to the memory of Prateik and Smita Patil.“I’ve never had that conversation with him, and out of respect for my little brother, I don’t want to talk about it because I’m talking about somebody’s mother. I call her smita maa. If I call her “Maa”, then I give her that respect because my father gave her that love and respect. And I will always give the same respect and love to Smita maa,” he said.Aarya also recalled the moment she decided to start calling Smita Patil ‘maa’.“When Prateik and I were in our twenties, I noticed that he used to call my mother ‘maa.’ That was the day I decided to call Smita maa, maa”.Talking about Raj Babbar’s return to the family, Aarya said that it happened years after Smita Patil’s death.“It happened when Papa built a bungalow in Juhu and invited us to live there. I was around nine or ten years old then. Smita ji had passed away much earlier, at the age of five,” he said.Aarya further said that she never blamed her father for leaving for a while after experiencing such a deep loss.“If you’re deeply, emotionally and mentally invested in someone, and life plays such a cruel joke and you lose them, imagine what that person must be going through,” he said.“He probably just needed time to understand himself and think about his life. He was alone during that time. We only lived five minutes apart. He had a place in his office and stayed there for a few years. He kept visiting us and staying with us too.”Smita Patil died at the age of 31 due to complications following childbirth. Prateik Babbar was born on November 28, 1986 and passed away on December 13 of that year.
