Actor Pankaj Tripathi is married to his high school sweetheart Mridula. The couple, who has been married for 20 years, still faces struggle on the family front. In an interview, the actor's wife revealed that they got married at a time when love marriages weren't the norm. Due to the cultural and status differences between their families, Pankaj Tripathi's mother still hasn't “accepted” Mridula as her daughter-in-law. Mridula recalled she first met the actor at her brother's wedding, who was getting married to Pankaj's sister. At that time, she was in 9th grade while Pankaj was in 11th standard. They dated for 12 years before getting married.
"It's still not acceptable. We aren't blood relatives, but in our culture, it is unacceptable for a woman to be married into a family of a lower stature, if another woman has already been married into a family of a higher stature. And because my sister-in-law had been married into my family, I couldn't be married into their family, which was considered of lower stature," Mridula said on the Conversations with Atul YouTube channel.
Mridula revealed that she was almost married to someone else but decided to tell her father about her relationship with Pankaj Tripathi. She said, "There was a tehelka, a bawaal (a ruckus). Bhabhi wasn't happy, mom wasn't happy. She was concerned about how he'd take care of me. But slowly, they came around to accepting us."
While most of their family members have now made peace with their marriage, there are still some reservations from Pankaj Tripathi's mother's side. "My mother-in-law hasn't accepted me to this day, for the reasons I mentioned earlier. She is still upset about this intermingling. But what can we do about it now?" Mridula said.
Pankaj Tripathi and Mridula got married in 2004. They are now proud parents to their daughter Aashi Tripathi.