How Neena Gupta Found Love In Her Forties, After Raising A Child Singlehandedly

Vivek Mehra-Neena Gupta marriage tells us that love knows no age bar: As Neena Gupta celebrates 20 years of togetherness with husband Vivek Mehra on March 4, it's the perfect time for us to look at the veteran actor's journey as an inspirational single mother and wife. Gupta not only challenged social stigmas by raising a daughter as a single parent back in the 80s, but she also embraced love and marriage as and when it came in her life, not thinking about "log kya kahenge".

The 61-year-old was way ahead of her times when she took the bold decision to give birth to her child, Masaba Gupta while dating Vivan Richard in the late 1980s. Richards later married Miriam Richards while Gupta raised a daughter as a single parent.

Gupta had earlier opened up about raising a daughter as a single mother and said that she would not have gotten married if she wasn’t sure that her husband liked Masaba. “If my husband didn’t like Masaba or if he was the kind who would never get along with her, I’d never get married to him. No matter how much I love or lust a man, I wouldn’t have ever decided to be in a relationship with anyone if they had a problem with my daughter. It’s very important that she likes who I’m with and vice versa,” she had revealed.

Neena Gupta-Vivek Mehra lovestory

While their relationship goes back to 20 years, Gupta only got married to Delhi-based chartered accountant Vivek Mehra in 2008. Masaba was 19 then. On Thursday, she shared a throwback picture with her husband, writing, "20 saal ho gaye saath mein (Its been 20 years of us together)."

Talking about how they two met each other, the Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan actor had revealed on Neha Dhupia's show No Filter Neha, “We met in the plane. He was coming from London, I was coming from London to Bombay. He’s based in Delhi but he was coming to Bombay for some work. And, just imagine, that is why I believe so much in destiny and fate. I was in business class – Air India, upstairs. He was somewhere behind, but, one lady wanted him to change his seat and that’s how he came and sat besides me. My life would have been so different.”

In another interview, Gupta had said that she would not have gotten married if she wasn’t sure that her husband liked her daughter. "If my husband didn’t like Masaba or if he was the kind who would never get along with her, I’d never get married to him. No matter how much I love or lust a man, I wouldn’t have ever decided to be in a relationship with anyone if they had a problem with my daughter. It’s very important that she likes who I’m with and vice versa,” she said.

Feature Image Credit: Hindustan Times