By Shishir Prashant 
PrashantNews
Veteran actress Neena Gupta has won hearts across the country with her portrayal of Manju Devi in the Panchayat series. She is also happily married to Delhi-based Charted accountant Vivek Mehra. But she has seen several ups and downs in her life.
She got pregnant out of wedlock in the late 1980s. However, before that chapter in her life, she was engaged to be married to another man, who allegedly ditched her after the engagement, and never gave an explanation as to why he was doing so. He made an excuse about a sinus operation but called off the wedding, media reports said.
During a recent media interview, she shared, “I was engaged to a guy who ditched me at the last minute. In my mind, I was set to have a kid and the ring ceremony had also happened. I had gone to Delhi to buy my clothes and jewellery, and suddenly I got a call from him saying that we aren’t getting married right now. I asked what happened and he said that he needs to get his sinus operation done.”
The veteran actor further added, “I thought that it’s not even a major issue, that operation can be done later on as well. Till date, I don’t know the reason behind breaking off the wedding. I kept asking his parents about what happened but they never told me. Then he came back after six months or something and said that he wants to marry me, I said ‘F**k off. Now, I don’t want to marry you.”
Gupta married Amlan Kusum Ghose, studying at IIT-Delhi, while still a bachelor’s student. The marriage was short-lived with both mutually and amicably deciding to part ways within a year. She was briefly engaged to Shaarangdev Pandit, the son of Pandit Jasraj. She was in a relationship with former West Indies cricketer Vivian Richards in the late 1980s. Though they never married, they have a daughter named Masaba Gupta born in 1989. Since Richards was already married, Gupta decided to raise Masaba on her own as a single mother. In 2008, Gupta married New Delhi–based chartered accountant Vivek Mehra in a private ceremony in the United States.
Recently she was asked to identify where things went wrong in her career. Neena traced it back to her very first film, Saath Saath, where she played a supporting role while Farooque Shaikh and Deepti Naval were cast as the leads. She believes that decision proved costly, as it limited how the industry perceived her and cost her the chance to be seen as a leading heroine. Owning up to that choice, she admitted it was her mistake and shared that accepting it helped her let go of bitterness. According to her, constantly blaming circumstances or others only leads to frustration, while acknowledging one’s own missteps makes it easier to move forward and grow. Well, much like her performances on screen, Neena Gupta’s life philosophy is just as steady, honest and perfectly on point