For those who’ve watched Aditya Chopra’s 1995 directorial debut Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, they can’t help but admire the entire ensemble cast which was at the heart of the seminal romantic drama. One of the key members of the cast was Himani Shivpuri, who played Kammo Kaur, the aunt of Kajol’s Simran, and the love interest of Dharamvir Malhotra (Anupam Kher), the father of Shah Rukh Khan’s Raj.

Why Himani Shivpuri didn’t make it to the DDLJ climax

But if you notice the memorable climax of DDLJ, where almost the entire ensemble cast comes together, Himani’s Kammo is glaringly missing. She was supposed to be a part of that sequence, and even have a culmination to her romance with Dharamvir Malhotra, but she couldn’t make it to the shoot because of a personal tragedy just two to three days prior — the death of her husband Gyan Shivpuri.

Looking back, Himani recalled the overwhelming circumstances she found herself in following her husband’s death. In a recent interview with Nation One, Himani Shivpuri said, “Thankfully, my brother had come then. But he was younger than me, and didn’t know Mumbai well. So, I had to make all funeral arrangements myself. I had no semblance of what happened because I was busy with that. It was a big shock and responsibility.”

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She revealed that Gyan Shivpuri just collapsed on the washroom floor. When she called for a doctor who stayed in the same building as hers, he pronounced him dead. Unable to believe his word, Himani decided to take her husband to the hospital. “It was a mistake. Because once you take it to the hospital, they carry out the full postmortem. I had to deal with it all alone,” added the veteran actor.

Himani’s encounter with a cop who was a fan

As part of the postmortem formalities, Himani Shivpuri and her brother also had to go to a police station. There, she encountered a cop, who was a fan of her iconic villainous portrayal in Manohar Shyam Joshi’s popular 1993 show Humrahi. “My husband was dead, but the cop said he loved my character of Devaki Bhaujai,” she recounted, laughing. While she can laugh off the incident now, Himani recollects getting very angry back then, only for her brother to calm her down.

Amidst all the commotion, the actor even forgot she had to go for the shoot of the DDLJ climax. “But they nicely called me and said, ‘No, we understand your husband has died. But we have the dates of everyone else — Shah Rukh, Amrish Puri, Farida Jalal, and other actors. Ma’am, we have to do it, but we understand you can’t come.’ I didn’t even devote much attention to it then,” added Himani.

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DDLJ went on to become one of the highest-grossing and longest-running Indian films of all time.