Veteran actress Neena Gupta has never been one to mince words, be it with her personal life or her candid takes on matters. From working as a waitress after her acting classes to having a daughter out of wedlock, Neena has been her unapologetic self while speaking up about her unconventional life choices. Now, amid the admiration she’s getting for her latest work in Metro… In Dino, Neena has once again opened up about a personal chapter of her life: when she fell in love for the first time.

Neena Gupta reminisces about her first love, who later became her husband

In a recent interaction with News 18 Showsha, Neena Gupta opened up about falling in love for the first time during her college days. She revealed that her first love was an IIT student, Amlan Kusum Ghose, whom she later married. However, the marriage ended amicably within a year. 

The Panchayat actress also recalled how her college peers envied her bold fashion choices back then, particularly her spaghetti straps, which set her apart as a ‘modern woman’ in their eyes. She was quoted as saying:

“My first love was with an IIT guy, whom I went on to marry eventually. My college fellows used to be very jealous of me at that time. Their parents wouldn’t allow them to wear spaghetti straps, and I was a modern woman, according to them. Woh salwar kameez-chunni waale the aur woh mujhse jalte the.”

Neena shared an incident when her jealous college mates sabotaged her plan to meet her then-boyfriend, Amlan, for a film. Before their date, one of her friends told her plans to her mother, and her parents didn’t allow her to go to the movies. Due to a lack of phones back then, she couldn’t inform Amlan, and the latter kept waiting for her in the movie theatre. She shared:

“This one time, my then-boyfriend and I decided to go watch a film. I revealed my plans to one of those girls by mistake, and then they went and told my mother that main ek ladke ke saath picture dekhne jaa rahi hoon. My parents didn’t let me go, too. Back then, we didn’t have phones and so, I couldn’t inform him. He kept waiting for me.”

Neena Gupta says she has never been in love

Neena Gupta, has had several relationships in the past, and she finally settled with her now-husband, Vivek Mehra. However, despite her past experiences, she has never felt the kind of love shown in movies or described in books. She confessed to having fallen deeply for one person, but the relationship never worked out, as it wasn’t meant to be. In Neena’s words:

“I’ve never been in love. The love that I see in movies and read in books, I’ve never experienced that in real life. Nobody has loved me like that. Toh main bhi kaise kar loon? Karna bhi toh padhega na kisi ko. Mere peeche koi paagal nahi hua (laughs). But I had madly fallen in love with someone. It didn’t translate into a relationship because it wasn’t possible.”

Neena Gupta’s take on age-defying love

In another conversation with Zoom, Neena Gupta and Anupam Kher, who play an unconventional elderly couple in Anurag Basu’s Metro… In Dino, said that love can happen at any age. Neena emphasised that Indian films explore the purity of elderly relationships to break ageist norms against love and show it as it is – pure, true, and not defined by appearance.

What are your thoughts on Neena Gupta’s take on love in her personal life? 

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