Actor Amin Hajee, who played Bagha in Ashutosh Gowariker’s Lagaan (2001), has given a deeply personal account of how he fell in love with his wife Charlotte Whitby-Cole on the film’s set in Bhuj, the complications around her existing relationship at the time, the cultural warnings from friends, and the couple’s decision to raise their two daughters without any religion.

In conversation with Siddharth Kannan, the couple recalled that Charlotte was already in a relationship when she arrived on the Lagaan set. “At that point, she wasn’t really looking for love. She was kind of already romantically involved,” Amin Hajee said. “But I was bold about it. I thought she was really cute. I’m quite shy as a person. So basically, she danced around me, hoping I’d make a move too.”

When asked how Charlotte ended her previous relationship, She answered, “She went home and broke up with him and told him that she found an Indian guy,” he said.

Amin Hajee said a turning point in their relationship came when Charlotte, who is eight years younger than him, confronted him about his self-doubt. He had been going through a difficult phase professionally and personally, and Charlotte challenged him directly.

He said Charlotte told him something he has never forgotten: “Maybe you’re giving too much negative attention, and that same negativity is coming back to you.”

Amin Hajee then shared a story that Charlotte had told him about the British contingent on the Lagaan set. Among the 40 to 50 British cast and crew members, including cricketers and extras, an informal vote was held to pick their three favourite people from the 200-strong Indian contingent on set. Amin was voted number one. “She told me, ‘So many people want you, and you’re telling yourself that you’re this or that, like you’re nobody. Don’t do that. Look at what you have,'” he said. “You used to talk yourself down a lot. That’s the one thing she noticed the most.”

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Amin Hajee said if anyone asks him today why they have been together for 26 years, his answer goes back to that moment. “She said, ‘You’re a rockstar, never forget that. You’re very capable. You’ll go wherever you want. You’ll succeed and come back successful. Believe in yourself. You have what it takes.’ And that carried me.”

Not everyone around them was encouraging. Amin Hajee recalled that friends in the industry, including Ronit Roy and Javed Jaffrey, raised concerns about the relationship’s viability. “They told me, ‘Amin, you fell in love with a fair-skinned girl in 2000. How are you going to keep her in India? Do you know those people drink Bisleri water? Do you know how much a bottle of Bisleri costs?'” he recalled. “‘The bird and the fish can never be friends.'”

Amin Hajee said the warnings came from a place of genuine concern. “Of course, everyone encouraged me. But I’m saying there were concerns, you know how friends talk,” he said.

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Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao at the wedding of Lagaan co-star Amin Hajee and Charlotte Whitby-Cole

Charlotte, meanwhile, left a life of considerable comfort to be with him. Amin Hajee described her father as wealthy. “Leaving all that behind and coming here,” he said. “I have a place in Bandra. Up in the attic, we made a small bedroom where she stayed. Maybe some people here would feel cramped because it’s pretty small. But she calls it being ‘ardhangini,'” he said, using the Sanskrit word for a devoted wife. “She played the role really well. I always tell her, you might look fair-skinned, but you’re totally desi.”

On their daughters following a particular faith, Amin Hajee said, “They don’t have any religion, no formal religion,” he said. “The names come from the sky, from nature. Our kids are human beings. Our kids aren’t Hindu, aren’t Muslim. They won’t become Hindu or Muslim. They’re children of humans. They’ll be human. We decided that together.”

He said the couple made a conscious choice to strip away the layers of religion, culture and tradition that would have kept them apart. “If I have to do that and then leave my loved ones, no. I’d rather leave them. So, we both stopped being those things,” he said.

Amin Hajee said he is “a bit more the opposite, “not particularly spiritual and not fully convinced about the existence of a higher power. “Sometimes I believe it, sometimes I don’t. But it’s something we were raised with,” he said.