Pankaj Tripathi’s wife says mother-in-law hasn’t ‘accepted’ her even after years

Actor Pankaj Tripathi and Mridula have been married for around 19 years, and yet their struggles as a couple continue. In an interview recently, the actor’s wife spoke about not being accepted by her mother-in-law because they had a love marriage in times when social constructs didn’t allow the same.
While speaking on the Conversations with Atul YouTube channel, Mridula revealed that she got married to Pankaj despite apprehensions from both sides of families. She recalled how she first met the actor at her brother’s wedding, who was getting married to Pankaj’s sister. Mridula said while their affection for each other grew, they feared their relationship was not going to be accepted because she belonged to a family of a higher social standing.
She explained, “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 above her station into my family, I couldn’t be married into their family, which was considered of a lower stature.”
Mridula was in ninth standard and Pankaj was in 11th when they first discovered feelings for each other. Later, she was almost married to someone else when she decided to break the news to her father, who gave a surprising reaction. She recalled her father saying, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? I wouldn’t have wasted time looking for boys,” while her mother and sister-in-law felt devastated.
Mridula said it took time for everyone to come onboard and accept the relationship, but the differences continue to exist even today. She said, “There was a tehelka, a bawaal (a ruckus). Bhaabhi 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.”
Pankaj, Mridula and their families have come far from those days. And despite the reservations, the couple has made their peace with moving on. “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 concluded.
After getting married in 1993, the couple welcomed their first child, a daughter, in 2006, and named her Aashi Tripathi.