Saif Ali Khan and his ladylove Rosa walk together out of an airport after a recent trip abroad.

Mumbai: Aug 23, 2005/Sawf News Service/ -- In the past few years, several Bollywood couples have experienced heartbreak because of the breakup of their marriages. Among these are Aamir Khan - Reena Dutta, Saif Ali Khan – Amrita Singh and now Karishma Kapoor – Sanjay Kapur! All of these couples have children and therefore whatever the differences of the couple, both father and mother are concerned about the security and personalities of their young offspring. Character actor Gulshan Grover, who has been separated, feels that no matter what, a bitter breakup of parents does affect the children who can see what’s going on despite the effort of the parents to hide their differences. “It is better to up front with them, provided they are old enough to understand,” he says, “I kept the bad news from my son for years and now I have to pay special attention to him because the events have hurt him badly. I encourage my son to meet his mother.” “A child’s privacy is important,” says television star Achint Kaur, “So blame games are out.”

Aamir Khan has publicly admitted that the four-year gap between Lagaan and Mangal Pandey – The Rising is largely because of the personal trauma he went through with the breakup of his marriage soon after Lagaan became a mega success. The children – a boy and a girl – are with Reena Dutta, his wife and he is able to see them infrequently. He is presently in a relationship with Kiran Rao, an assistant director to Ashutosh Gowarikar, the director of Lagaan. More recently, one more skeleton in the cupboard of Aamir Khan has been revealed by Stardust, a Bollywood magazine from Mumbai. The journal published a number of photographs of Jessica Hines, a British reporter who came to India to interview Aamir Khan during the making of Lagaan and developed a relationship with him. “It was love at first sight,” she is supposed to have said. Jessica became pregnant and reports said that Aamir tried to persuade her to have an abortion. As a result, he and wife Reena Dutta broke up and a divorce ensued in 2002. Jessica went back to England and gave birth to a son called Jaan. According to Jessica the father of the child is Aamir Khan. Aamir Khan is not willing to talk about his personal life even now. But the strain shows.

It shows on Saif Ali Khan too. Saif divorced his wife Amrita Singh who has spoken little in public. But the media is not likely to leave him alone. A recent report said how graceless he was while eating a meal on a flight with his current love, Italian model Rosa. It said that he did not allow her to eat – and that she had to return the meal uneaten while he ate heartily himself and went to sleep. Co-passengers heard him ‘nagging Rosa not to eat’ while he gorged himself till Rosa gave up hope of eating any food! Media reports are questioning whether Saif’s break-up with Amrita was for this reason – that he needs to totally control the woman who wants to share life with him!

Karishma Kapoor, whose divorce is now sure, is also worried about the future of her four-month-old daughter Samaira. “I hope she is not affected by all these ugly events,” she says, about the court case filed by her husband Sanjay to stop her from taking the child on a holiday abroad to the US!