Manoj Bajpayee has painstakingly built a career carrying a filmography boasting of some powerful films with formidable performances. Bajpayee's life trajectory as an actor is also what led him to meet his wife Shabana Raza. An anecdote from the actor's biography however, reveals how Manoj's wedding to Shabana was a spur of the moment decision - one sparked by the need for a home loan.

The unique circumstances under which Manoj Bajpayee and Shabana Raza tied the knot

For the unversed, Manoj and Shabana had been living together prior to tying the knot. An attempt to get a home loan approved was met with the simple roadblock that the two were not married. Both the actors had already decided to spend their lives together. This coinciding with the need for a marriage certificate to get the home loan approved is what led to the sudden wedding with neither's parents present for the same. 

She said, "We had gone for a loan. The bank officer said we couldn’t get the joint loan because we were not married. Other issues were also there in which a marriage certificate was needed. We were anyway going to get married, but such things increased the necessity. We thought even people ask bizarre questions, so let’s shut them all up." Manoj's close friend Harsh Chhaya had later revealed how the actor's late mother had reacted. She said, 'We knew about Manoj and Shabana, but the wedding was planned suddenly. We had been to Mumbai a few days before his wedding to see his house. He didn’t talk about marriage even then. Then he suddenly said that he was getting married. We asked him to have the wedding in the village, but he didn’t agree to it.'

Manoj Bajpayee and Shabana Raza's togetherness took some convincing

Excerpts from Manoj Bajpayee: The Definitive Biography, by Piyush Pandey, reveals how Manoj Bajpayee and Shabana Raza wanting to spend their lives together, actually took palpable convincing when it came to the former's family. The reason behind this was the inter-faith nature of their equation.

Excerpts read, "My family might have been worried about Shabana’s religion, but nobody expressed it openly. They didn’t show any sadness either..." Shabana's parents on the other hand, had wholeheartedly accepted the pair, their inter-faith love not being a concern for them. He said, "Shabana’s family was open and progressive. They were not opposed to interfaith marriage and they had made that abundantly clear."