When Esha Deol recalled meeting dad Dharmendra’s first wife Prakash Kaur for the first time, “I touched her feet, she left me after…”

Esha Deol once crossed a boundary long considered unspoken in the Deol household, becoming the first member from Hema Malini’s side of the family to enter Dharmendra’s family home. With Dharmendra’s passing at 89, the moment has resurfaced as a reminder of the complex but deeply human bonds within the legendary film family.

Dharmendra married Parkash Kaur when he was 19, and together they raised four children: Sunny, Bobby, Vijeeta and Ajeita. His second marriage to Hema Malini in 1980 brought daughters Esha and Ahana, but the two families continued to live separately. According to the biography Hema Malini: Beyond the Dream Girl, no one from Hema’s family was ever allowed inside Dharmendra’s first home, maintaining a delicate balance between both households.

That arrangement shifted briefly in 2015, when Dharmendra’s elder brother Ajeet Deol, father of actor Abhay Deol, fell seriously ill. Esha felt compelled to visit him. The affection between them was longstanding, and the circumstances allowed no other option.

“I wanted to meet my uncle and pay my respects. He loved me and Ahana very much and we were also very close to Abhay,” Esha said at the time. She explained that Ajeet Deol was at home and not in a hospital, leaving her with only one path. “We had no other way than to go to his house. So I called Sunny Bhaiya and they made full arrangements to meet him.”