Valentine’s Day special | Suhasini Mulay: I met my husband at the age of 59 on the internet

Completing a decade of marriage, actor Suhasini Mulay talks about her unconventional love story and how she changed her mind about marriage, and found love on a social networking website.

We live in the era of speed dating, dating apps, with love supposed to be just a tap away. Old school love seems to have faded. Which is why actor Suhasini Mulay’s love story comes as a breath of fresh air! Deciding to take the plunge at 59, actor Suhasini Mulay broke a lot of societal norms.

Actor Suhasini Mulay with husband Atul Gurtu.

“I met my husband on Facebook! I didn’t have an account until then, as I didn’t find social media to be my cup of tea. I have work, no time to answer mails either. A colleagues one said I should open one, usse kaam milta hai. She did it for me, and unfortunately, put my photo on it. I happen to be a known face, so I started getting all kinds of weird emails and responses, which I had not anticipated. It made me cautious of it,” she recalls.

One day, she found a suggestion on her feed, which made her curious. It belonged to a particle physicist, Atul Gurtu. “I had some interest in science, so I got inclined. He was working on an experiment; there was then this whole business about the God particle. I wrote to him, asking if he was working on that; he said yes. The I sent a question and we got talking,” shares the National Film Award winner, adding, “I was busy shooting, and very jarry of going any further with this. He was actually looking for a change in his life; he was a widower. He wrote once saying if he can have my mobile number, I wrote back ‘Good girls don’t give mobile number to strangers’! I checked out his photo, and then the website of his institute, the name and face matched, so he was not bullshi**ing about that!”

Marriage wasn’t on the cards, the 70-year-old asserts, but a mail from Gurtu made her think. “He wrote, ‘You are very happy busy running around, but if you want change, that won’t happen automatically’. I said baat waajib hai. I was already going on 60, but then I thought and said, ‘Kya jaata hai...’ We met, and there was a long conversation. What age does is, it makes it clear in your head what you will negotiate and what you won’t, in a relationship,” the Jodha akhbar (2008) actor adds.

One of her friends, who had also remarried after losing his wife, helped her make up her mind. She was told that if the other person is a rational human being, and if things don’t work out, one can say it.

“You are getting committed because you want to, not because society is pushing you. There is enough pressure from friends, country men, luckily not from my mother, who I wanted him to meet first. We got married within one and a half months of meeting each other on January 16, 2011. It’s been 10 years now,” shares Mulay, who recently came back from a vacation in Hampi with her husband.