 When Renuka was very young, her mother divorced her father and married a man named Arun Khopkar, who was a film-maker.However, this second marriage soon ended in another divorce, after which Shanta Gokhale began a long-term friendship with Jerry Pinto, also a film journalist like her.Renuka and her only sibling, Girish Shahane, who is her full brother, grew up with their mother in Mumbai.