Darshan Jariwala reacts to wife Apara Mehta's claims. (EXPRESS PHOTO BY VIKAS KHOT)Darshan Jariwala has responded to his estranged wife and fellow actor Apara Mehta’s claims. Last month, she claimed that back in the early 2000s, he walked out of their home after confessing that he’d “fallen out of love” with her and that she was “the ugliest woman” he’d ever seen. Jariwala and Mehta have been separated for 23 years, but haven’t divorced each other legally yet.Reacting to Apara’s claims, Darshan said, “There’s a neurological phenomenon that with time, your memory of an event keeps changing. I can say very generously that it’s a case of false memory. The way it’s been narrated, nothing like that happened,” claimed Jariwala in a conversation with Siddharth Kannan.“I’m not that kind of a guy who would even tell, let’s say a plain-looking woman, that she’s ugly. It would be a very irrelevant remark to make. If I know myself well, I’d talk about how the person is inside, and not really from outside,” he added.Sharing that Apara Mehta is “absolutely welcome” to “play the victim card”, Darshan Jariwala confessed he’s moved on and is “very happy” where he’s right now. The actor has been living with interior designer and architect Anahita Italia since 2010. “I can’t even fathom why she’d want to talk about these things 23 years after being separated. And never before this! If this is the history, and she’s had the opportunity to take this to the media, why now?,” he said.“We can’t sit in her mind and judge. I know my truth. My truth is my truth. There’s no limit to lies. I can’t even gauge her motivation,” said Jariwala. “The people who really know me know the entire story really well because my version doesn’t change. Truth has no versions,” he added.Darshan blamed his separation with Apara on growing differently across the years since they got married back in 1982.“Two people grow to be different. If you plant two saplings together, they’ll grow differently. Her priorities are different, mine were different. My circumstances changed because I was involved in an unsuccessful business venture. Even our thinking about how we want to deal with our careers was different. So, we tried to give the best childhood to our daughter. That’s where we were very clear. A relationship goes through changes sometimes,” said the actor.Story continues below this adWhy Darshan Jariwala never divorced Apara MehtaDarsh Jariwala also explained why him and Apara Mehta never divorced legally. “I did file divorce papers, but the judge rejected the application. She didn’t give her consent,” said the actor, adding, “She’d agreed for divorce, but she changed her mind in front of the judge at the last minute. She’s probably playing a character of a nice, wronged victim.”Recalling that one day, he “just walked out of their home,” giving his “very good house” in Santacruz West to his wife and their daughter, Darshan said, “That’s all I had to give to her. If someone had to ask for alimony, it should’ve been me because I was under those circumstances. But nothing like that happened.”Since he didn’t have another house or even the money to pay rent, the actor lived at his friends’ place for some time before he could afford to rent out a small house. “But the circumstances were like that I went through that pain despite that,” said Jariwala.After years of struggle, Darshan Jariwala landed a popular cola brand commercial with Aishwarya Rai, and then his National Award-winning breakthrough titular role in Feroz Abbas Khan’s 2007 period drama Gandhi, My Father.Story continues below this adAlso Read — Prajakta Koli doesn’t see Operation Safed Sagar’s Madhavi Reddy as ‘red flag’: ‘She was in love’During the interview, Darshan also spoke about his relationship with his daughter. He revealed that they are in regular touch and share a good relationship. “I’m quite good as a father. I keep in touch with her. I’m quite aware of all the developments in her life. She has a good channel of communication open with me. She also has a debit card from me,” said the actor. He also dismissed his wife’s claims that she’s raised their daughter singlehandedly. “Sometimes, we take a vacuum in our lives and try to decorate it. We put strangeness where there’s nothing, consciously or subconsciously,” claimed Jariwala.