"He was Shammi chacha (uncle) and his wife was Neela chachi (aunt) for me…It was her idea that I call them chacha and chachi. Now when this shocking news comes, my heart reaches out to Neela chachi," said Asha.

"How will she cope? She devoted her entire being looking after him. Though she came from a very large and closely-knit family, after marriage Shammi chacha was her life…My heart reaches out to her…Shammi chacha…what do I say?"

Talking about her association with the actor, who died Monday after kindey failure, Asha Parekh said: "Memories flood back to my first film `Dil Deke Dekho` where I was this gawky nervous tomboy. Shammi chacha taught me how to perform in the songs, how to do lip-sync in the song sequences. We later did `Teesri Manzil` together, which was iconic."

"When we were shooting for `Teesri Manzil`, we never thought it would become so popular with time. We had such fun - me, Shammi chacha, producer Nasir Saab (Nasir Husain) and the director Vijay Anand.