Noted Actor Pankaj Tripathi's wife Mridula recalls how she first saw the star in a photograph, and how their love story started in 1993 and culminated into marriage in 2004.
Talking to Filmmaker Atul Taishete, Mridula says it was in 1993 that she first saw Pankaj.
"I saw my husband and he saw me on 23 May 1993 for the first time. Before that we had gotten photographs. It was for my brother's wedding. A girl's picture had come. Her two brothers and parents were in the picture. That had come when I was in ninth and he was in eleventh," she said.
Mridula confessed that she had taken the pictures to school and shown it to her close friends back then.
"They saw my bhabhi but they also saw the two brothers. The Elder brother had gotten married and had kids and then the younger brother. My friends teased me that the younger brother will look nice with you."
Mridula first saw Pankaj on the day of her brother's tilak ceremony.
"We saw each other a lot in the tilak. I still tell Pankaj that I saw you when you had just started getting a beard and now I am seeing you when you have got glasses. It has been a long journey," she recalled.
When asked to speak about their love story, she said that the "liking was mutual and that he started looking for reasons to meet."
The handkerchief played a very important role in their love story.
"The conversation started like 'haath dhoya to rumaal chahiye'. So, I am the one to hand that over to him. 'Rumaal dene main hi haath touch hogaya' in that only you get butterflies," she said.
Their conversations started very slowly.
"I used to say 'aap' my mother said to call him 'bhaiya' because he is my sister-in-law's brother and two years older than you. That was a dilemma because I couldn't call him bhaiyya. I started with Pankaji ji. I never called him Bhaiyya or Pankaj," she said.
Mridula disclosed that she addresses Pankaj as "pati" and they both have a daughter, Aashi Tripathi.
"Till date I call him pati. When he would come to Calcutta (Kolkata) in 6 months or a year he would purposely touch my foot. He is very naughty. A small love story that began in 1993 we completed in 2004 by getting married."
They never ever professed love to each other as she said it was very 'organic'. In fact, it was she who wrote a letter to him about getting married when he was in the National School of Drama in New Delhi.
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