He didn't convert her.
A meeting of minds
1975. RATNA PATHAK SHAH was in her second year of college when her relationship with Naseeruddin Shah started evolving. They were from worlds apart—he was seven years older, and was brought up in Meerut; she had grown up in Mumbai, amid Gujaratis and Parsis. But, they did not try to hide their relationship a wee bit. One day, while strolling on Juhu beach in Mumbai, Naseeruddin proposed marriage, and Ratna readily agreed.
Dina Pathak, Ratna’s actor mother, and Baldev, her garment-trading father, were not sure of him though. “Her parents started getting seriously worried that things were getting out of hand. It was time for them to take action and make her lose this drug-addled mongrel she was becoming increasingly fond of and for whom, on odd occasions, she had even defied them,” wrote Naseer in his memoir, And Then One Day. His memoir is peppered with instances of them having a problem with his smoking hashish. Naseer and Ratna eventually got hitched in 1982, after a long wait for his divorce from his first wife to come through.
But, was there any opposition based on religion? “None at all,” said Naseer, sitting at his Bandra residence, with packs of cigarettes lying around on the many tables in the living area. “Ratna’s mother’s objection was that we were from different cultural backgrounds. She realised that I was not a very devout Muslim rightaway. I do not know what she felt about it.”
The problems that they did foresee were more cultural, like, as a family friend told them, “serve alcohol or not; have pictures of Mecca in the house or not,” recalled Naseer. “As it is, I have always been put off by the display of faith. That was never even the intention. It was not the case in my family either. Yes, they prayed, but they never insisted that I follow their example. They told me to try it. I tried, it didn’t work for me.”
Ratna clarified that they never practised their respective religions. “We culturally belonged to those religions,” she said. “We have been able to, however, make our own rules. We do not carry the baggage (of belonging to a certain religion). In an ideal world, that is how everybody should be known.”
The cultural differences were easily overcome. “We could not have a nikah, because Ratna was not a Muslim and I had no intention of even converting her,” said Naseer. His mother, a devout Muslim, did once ask about it. “I told her no, and it was fine,” he said. The family, including children—Heeba (from Naseer’s first marriage), Imaad and Vivaan—cherishes smaller things from all festivals, and celebrates them.
The communal problems of the current times are glaring. Naseer talked about a debate on TV between BJP leader Subramanian Swamy and actor Prakash Raj. “What Swamy was saying was so unreasonable, yet the audience was loving it, applauding it, lapping it up and cheering him on,” he said. “He was saying factually correct things—like which Muslim country has a democracy. But, who is asking for a Muslim government (in India)? It is astonishing to see a cerebral person like him resort to these kind of populist arguments when the need arises. It has become very strange.”
He does not feel threatened, because he has a “somewhat privileged position”. There is no fear because they have not been affected directly, but they empathise with those who have. “We are secure enough in our work and secure enough in our identities, and we have not subscribed to the rabid side of either [of the religions],” said Naseer. But, he is worried about the three cows he has at his farm in Karjat. “Tomorrow, you never know, some people might march in and say, ‘Why does a musalman have cows?’ This kind of thing is happening in continuity all over the country,” he said. “We respect each other’s differences—I have to light lamps on Diwali and Ratna happily makes sewaiyaan on Eid. We do not need to be told that you are not supposed to be married to each other or anything like that.”
Ratna said the Hindu-Muslim situation in the country had come to a boil, and had burst. “And once the dirt comes out, maybe a better future is possible,” she said. “I hope for that and would like to work for that, if possible.” She is waiting for the time things will change. “And it will,” she said. “Nothing stays the same.”
https://www.theweek.in/theweek/specials/2018/12/21/a-meeting-of-minds.html
https://www.vagabomb.com/The-Naseer...Will-Restore-Your-Faith-in-Love-and-Marriage/
Also world doesn't revolve around Islam or conversion to Islam. Your posts seem to be too obsessed with that.
