‘Nobody’s prepared for a divorce’: Actor Shefali Shah on her first marriage

Shefali Shah Shah describes the book as "a sort of memoir". When it was announced, she said, "Nothing in my life warrants a memoir. And yet, I chose to tell a story only I have the copyright to. I don't promise an ingenious book, but what I do promise is absolute honesty."

“I’m not naming anyone in the book. I’m not even getting into what happened or didn’t happen. I’m just talking about what happens on a general scale when people get married and nobody’s prepared for a divorce.”

That’s Shefali Shah writing about the end of her first marriage in ‘The Audacity of Being’, her memoir-in-essays published by Bloomsbury India. She spoke to The Indian Express in an exclusive interview. Shah was earlier married to actor Harsh Chhaya. In 2000, she married filmmaker-producer Vipul Amrutlal Shah, with whom she has two sons, Aryaman and Maurya.

People often go into marriage with “the idea of a happily-ever-after”, she believes. “Marriage may not necessarily pan out the way it is. And then, you just have no option but to deal with it.”

Asked about the candour with which she has written about her life, including the breakdown of her first marriage, Shah said, “There was nothing to really hide about. I think I’ve written about it very respectfully. I’m just talking about any marriage falling off the brink. There’s an entire thing about when you realise your marriage is falling apart. So it’s, I think, about the failure of a relationship.”

The book covers much more. Love and its familiar aches, divorce and remarriage, friendships and community, ageing as a Bollywood actor, creative self-doubt, body image and the trials of parenting.

Shah describes the book as “a sort of memoir”. When it was announced, she said, “Nothing in my life warrants a memoir. And yet, I chose to tell a story only I have the copyright to. I don’t promise an ingenious book, but what I do promise is absolute honesty.”

Shah has held a distinctive place in Indian entertainment for more than three decades, with films such as Satya, Monsoon Wedding, Dil Dhadakne Do, Jalsa and Darlings, and the Emmy-winning series Delhi Crime.

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She is aware that readers may interpret her accounts differently. “When you put yourself out there in the public domain, whether it’s on camera or when you are writing something, or even on Instagram, people will have a point of view,” she said.