Here’s Pankaj Tripathi’s love story of falling in love with his wife Mridula at first sight and fighting against the family to get married shows the power of true love!
Pankaj Tripathi has stolen our hearts many times through his powerful on-screen presence. With multiple great performances – Gangs of Wasseypur, Manjhi: The Mountain Man, Masaan, Nil Battey Sannata, Newton, Gunjan Saxena – The Kargil Girl – Pankaj Tripathi has joined the league of actors, who deliver a great performance every time. It is amazing how he always steals our hearts with his powerful dialogue delivery and his amazing on-screen presence.
But what is even more amazing is how he won his wife’s heart and how the couple fought the life circumstances together for more than two decades.
Pankaj and his wife, Mridula have been married for 14 years. They are also parents of a young daughter. Their love story is way more powerful and heart-touching than many romantic movies.
Pankaj was in the tenth grade when he decided that he won’t take dowry. He also decided that he would not go through a traditional arranged marriage. Rather, he would fall in love because no one in his village had ever had a love marriage.
For Pankaj Tripathi, it was love at first sight. Sharing the details of the exact moment, he mentioned how he first saw Mridula on a Friday night in 1993.
While sharing the details, he mentioned,
“It was my sister’s wedding and I saw her on the balcony of the terrace and thought to myself, “this is the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with.” And I did not even know who she was, or what her name was, at the time.”
At that time, Mridula was living in Kolkata while Pankaj was studying in Delhi and staying at the NSD hostel. Though at the time, ‘dating’ was still an alien concept, these lovers did write letters to each other. They managed this long-distance relationship with letters, which used to come once in 10 days, and a fixed phone call at 8 in the night.
After a 12-year long courtship, the couple finally got married in 2004. But this journey was anything but easy. They had to face resistance from their own family. As Mridula was his brother-in-law’s sister and being a Brahmin, it was against their caste to marry in a family where his sister had been married. But, Pankaj Tripathi didn’t lose hope. He was sure that Mridula was the one. So, he stood against his whole family and went ahead with his decision of marrying Mridula.
This beautiful couple has been together for almost 26 years of being together and Pankaj shares how he feels the same kind of love that he felt when the first time he saw her. The bond between the two became stronger with every struggle they faced. They supported each other when life tried to bog them down.
When Pankaj was still a struggling actor waiting to land up the powerful roles, it was Mridula who not only supported Pankaj but also looked after the house.
Talking about his struggle days, Pankaj Tripathi mentioned:
“If you ask me for my struggle, I don’t have any sad details like sleeping on a footpath or starving for days. That’s because my wife, Mridula, had taken over the entire responsibility of the house. In fact, I tell everyone that she is the man of the house.”
Pankaj was doing small roles since 2004. It took him almost 8 years to land up a role in Gangs of Wasseypur where he was recognized as an actor. But, all these eight years, it was his wife who stood like a rock with him. Teacher by profession, she looked after the finances and let him wholeheartedly pursue his dream.
And, as per Pankaj, till date she was – and still is – the man of the house.