Zeenat Aman recalls difficult phase in married life; Actress says her mother helped her return to films

Veteran actress Zeenat Aman decided to take a trip down memory lane and reflect on how her return to the screen after the birth of her first son, Azaan, was possible only because of the support of her mother.

Talking about the 1988 drama "Gawaahi", Zeenat revealed how she was going through a rough patch in her married life at the time and just wanted to escape her personal life.



Sharing how she came on board the low-budget courtroom drama, her note on social media read, "Gawaahi was shot in 1988, two years after the birth of my first son Azaan and just before the conception of my second born Zahaan. At this point in my life, the rosy picture of domestic bliss that I had conjured up while at the peak of my career was beginning to fade. Marriage and motherhood had both arrived, but the former was starting to show cracks. I was back living with my own mother (with little Azaan in tow) in her flat in south Bombay when an unexpected script arrived at my doorstep. It was a low budget courtroom drama based on Ayn Rand's play The Night of January 16th, and it was terrifically pitched to me by producer Vivek Vaswani and debut director Anant Balani (sic)."

Revealing a few titbits from the shoot diaries after recently witnessing "Gawaahi" yet again, Zeenat added, "Having once wanted to escape my professional life, I now wanted to escape my personal life and remember my identity as something outside of daughter, mother and wife! My amazing Amma stepped in to help out with Azaan and that allowed me to accept the role of murder-accused Janhvi Kaul in Gawaahi. We shot entirely in Mumbai, and the cast included the highly decorated Shekhar Kapur and the talented Ashutosh Gowarikar. I rewatched the film last night, and was reminded that it's quite a bold and unconventional whodunnit! Kaul is the "other woman" and secretary to business tycoon Ranjeet Chaudhary, whose mysterious death is the pivot on which the plot turns."Get the latest entertainment updates from the Times of India, along with the latest Hindi movies, upcoming Hindi movies in 2026 , and Telugu movies.”