Pankaj Tripathi’s Mother Still Hasn’t Accepted His Wife Mridula: ‘There Was A Bawaal…’

Pankaj Tripathi’s wife Mridula reveals their marriage faced backlash, and his mother still hasn’t accepted her.

Actor Pankaj Tripathi’s wife, Mridula, shared their struggle to marry due to cultural hurdles and family disapproval. In a candid interview on the Conversations with Atul YouTube channel, Mridula opened up about the deeply rooted societal norms that have kept her from being accepted by her mother-in-law, even 19 years after their marriage.

Mridula recalled that she first met Pankaj during a pre-wedding ceremony for their siblings. It was love at first sight, but they had to keep their relationship hidden from their families due to the social taboo surrounding love marriages in their community. She was in the 9th grade and Pankaj in the 11th when they started secretly meeting.

However, Mridula’s mother became suspicious and instructed her to call Pankaj ‘bhaiya’ (brother), a suggestion that Mridula firmly resisted. Instead, she called him ‘Pankaj ji’ for a while, eventually dropping the formalities and settling on ‘ji’. She joked that today, she simply calls him ‘pati’ (husband).

Despite their growing bond, the couple faced fierce opposition from their families, mainly because Mridula’s brother had already married Pankaj’s sister. According to their family’s tradition, it was unacceptable for another member of Mridula’s family to marry into Pankaj’s family, which was considered of a lower social standing.

When she finally gathered the courage to tell her father she wanted to marry Pankaj, she was met with an unexpected reaction. Rather than the fury she anticipated, her father simply asked, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” and assured her that he would support her choice. However, he insisted that the matter be kept private until Pankaj formally asked for her hand.

The news didn’t sit well with Mridula’s mother and sister-in-law. “There was a tehelka, a bawaal,” she revealed, with both women expressing concerns over how Pankaj would be able to take care of her. Despite the resistance, the couple eventually got married, though Mridula said her mother-in-law still hasn’t accepted her to this day.

“My mother-in-law hasn’t accepted me to this day, for the reasons I mentioned earlier. She’s still upset about this intermingling. But what can we do about it now?” Mridula said.