A well known Bollywood actor is standing at a party, talking to fawning friends. He is polite, attentive, but it is obvious he is looking for someone else. He is looking for his wife. Rare, don’t you think? Especially in Mumbai’s fast lane where many men post a ‘love you’ note for their wives over blackberry and are having private nookies with sexy young women.

The wife looks lovingly at him and says, “I’m right here babes!” This is a tiny vignette, but it symbolizes everything that is Suniel Shetty’s marriage to Mana.
Their relationship (he says thirty years, she says seventeen) spanning many decades, is rare, especially when you see the spark so alive. Suniel probably meant thirty years since he first laid his eyes on her and decided she was the one, and she meant since they actually got married. So how has the spark stayed alive so long?
“Doing things together is a great way to stay together,” shares Mana. “We do things with each other all the time, apart from the fact that we nearly never go to parties separately.”
To which Suniel adds emphatically, “If I wrap up at six, I’m home at seven, I’ve always shown Mana off than hidden her away. I spoke about my daughter openly when she was born, rather than trying to sport the single image. Family always comes first for me. Our close friends are people we’ve grown up with since we were young; they also view us a unit.” Suniel and Mana leave for work every morning and return home, hanging their professional cloaks at the door.
“It is important to stay exciting to each other, in the way you look, in being independent. Mana has her own identity. We do our own thing professionally and nearly never do things separately in our personal lives. Her trust, belief and faith in me took me through everything, the ups and the downs,” confides Suniel. Mana interjects, “You have to step up, grow, and build your own life if you have to win respect. I choose not to find out what he’s doing at work because I give space and need it too.”
Mana shares another trick to keep a marriage happy. “You don’t marry a man, you marry a family in India. You have to extend and look after your man’s family,” to which Suniel adds, “I like to come home after a work day to the peace of my home created by Mana, where I release stress and occasionally hang out with my ‘chaddi buddies.’”
“I’m a simple guy. It is hard to believe but I sometimes get startled when I look up at a traffic light and see people surrounding my car, I get momentarily confused! “Shoot, I’m an actor,” I say to myself! I have to remind myself often of the fame I’ve garnered.”
Bollywood is famed for its sex scandals within marriages and of course changing partners faster than they change their phones. In this scenario, how has Suniel dealt with temptation? “You have to decide whether the temptation or momentary dalliance is worth all that you lose for the irresponsibility,” says Suniel who was very clear the day he joined films that he would draw a distinct line between work and personal life.
“Security, mutual respect, being with a well kept man is a beautiful feeling. I still want to go to the airport to pick him up, we’ve kept that something special feeling alive and Suniel keeps me feeling wanted which makes the love happen every minute. Imagine how I’d feel if he didn’t want me around,” Mana twinkles.
Suniel’s message to making a marriage always sparkling is “Love is about being loved and being loving.”