Anupamaa star Rupali Ganguly has found herself in the midst of a new controversy, after her step daughter Eshaa Verma’s old post accusing the actress of separating her from her father Ashwin went viral.
Eshaa, in the said note claimed that the actress hurled death threats at her and her mother whenever they tried to get in touch with Ashwin Verma. While Rupali has regained from commenting on the same, her husband Ashwin disregarded Eshaa’s claims and said that she is just hurt because of her parents separating.
The Free Press Journal reached out to Eshaa to know her side of the story. In an exclusive chat with us, Eshaa poured her heart out and opened up on her father’s statements, Rupali Ganguly abusing her and her mother, her threats and a lot more.
Opening up on the Anupamaa fame, Esha says, “Rupali is my father’s third marriage. My mom is the second and I do not want to speak about the first because that is literally not my place. My parents were married from 1997 to 2008. There is proof that Rupali has posted and my father as well that they were together and bestfriends and lovers and all that. I am not sure what year, but you can see it on their profile. But I know when their affair started and at that time I was just 2 years old. So we can say in the year 2000 is when it began.”
Speaking of the Anupamaa fame’s contradicting reality from her onscreen image, Esha makes shocking revelations about the actress further and says, “As Rupali being the spokesperson for many women, she has not embodied that in her real life. She has very horrible values and I can’t even speak on it. It’s so terrible, it’s so dark. Umm, it is understandably my father’s fault. As a man, you have destroyed your own family, I totally agree. But if you are a woman who knows that a man is in a relationship and is married with two children and is currently in the marriage, why would you go out of your way to pursue that?”
Making another shocking revelation, Esha claims that the Anupamaa actor would come to her house in New Jersey when she was not married to Ashwin. Esha says, “Rupali would come to my house in New Jersey and stay in my parents bedroom and steal my mother’s jewellery. And when we would come to Mumbai to visit my grand parents, she would come to my house and would abuse my mother and she threatened me and my mother and she claimed that I was not my father’s kid. I do not have evidence of those texts because this was long time ago and we did not have the technology that we have today. So I don’t have the screenshots and all of that but these were the texts we would get.”
“So the pain was always there and then my father left when I was 13 years old, I am currently 26. So I tried to tweet about it, put it up on social media but that time the technology was not so advanced and it didn’t build attraction and my dad would always say, ‘take down the post.’ And he did, he asked me to take down the post that he found from Facebook and asked me to say that it was a lie. But I did not do it because that’s not fair and they are just trying to save their reputation,” says Eshaa.
Addressing how Rupali’s fans have been trolling her, Esha says, “I understand why would people say this, I mean her hard core fans saying I am looking for attention and fame. But mind you, I am not going to get anything out of this but the loss of my father completely. I don’t have him in my life right now, you know. But he still calls me once in a while and wishes me on special occasions and now that is going to be completely gone. I am not going to have my father in my life and I have to accept that and go through that. But at the end of the day, you are seeing them rise, you are seeing them post about their happy family and they don’t even acknowledge me and my sister, isn’t that totally heartbreaking? So these fans are trolling me and saying all these things but at the end of the day, I am advocating for mental health and to shed light on broken marriages and broken families, I have no gain from this. Like I said, I am going to lose my father now. It’s a lot of scrutiny and a lot of noise to take on. I did not even know this would happen, this post was from 4 years ago and I had forgotten about it. But now I am not going to deny it, because if I would do so, it would mean that I am lying. And this is what Rupali and my father want.”
“I am an adult today but everyone has an inner child and mine is super traumatised. I have healed it on my own and my mother and I stood on our two feet, my mother worked multiple jobs to give us the life we have today but it just never felt good knowing that she is shining because of all the things she did to get what she wants,” Esha further adds.
We asked Eshaa about her father Ashwin Verma disregarding her statements. Speaking of the same, she says, “My dad’s statement definitely did hurt. But the thing is, I am used to it in a way, I have grown visibly into it because my father does not say very supportive things to us anyway. Nor has he played a positive part in my life. He has not guided me, nor supported me, he has not been a part of any of my important events growing up. When I go to India, it is not a safe space. I have to leave in like less than 2 days because it is so unsafe and chaotic in the house and he will always side by Rupali. It is so heartbreaking because I even asked him, ‘I am your blood, your offspring, and you will not support me, but you will support her’?”
Further revealing how Rupali would threaten her, Esha says, “I don’t understand where a child goes wrong that two adults deliberately break a marriage and having a woman not even let a child meet her father? She would literally threaten me when I would call my father and would yell, ‘Watch what I do to you, do not call him.’ She would say even worse things to my mother. When I would go to Mumbai, I would want my father and mother to meet because they have never seen each other in like 12 years. I do not even have a picture with both my parents and I want a memory of them together, because you know our parents are growing old and no body wants to lose a parent to old age and I will have to deal with that when the time comes. But all I wanted to do was have a picture with my parents and when I went to the bathroom, Rupali literally just cornered me and said that if you try this stunt again, watch it. She just gave me this threat, I don’t remember her exact words. And I asked her what you did was okay? I will just remember that incident all my life.”
We asked Esha about the pictures she has with Rupali and Ashwin and about her visit to the sets of Anupamaa. Addressing the same, Esha says, “When I come to India, I am obviously going to stay with my father. I haven’t been to Indian in over four years now. Just because I know the relationship I have with my father and Rupali are very strained. And it is the bare minimum you can do by taking your kid to a set if you are such a big star right? She takes everyone to her studios. It is not just me, she takes everybody from her family and everyone kisses up to it. I just wanted to explore the environment on a set but there is nothing much to it. I posted the picture because my father has never posted a single picture of me on his page. The acknowledgment was non existent until today when he said he has two daughters. Wow, you just said it because I spoke up. He would never put up a picture with me, if I would tag him, he would not even re post it. Nor would he follow me or anything. Rupali following me also is the bare minimum, I mean no body should think that it is a very sane thing to do because you are not taking care of me like your kid right?”
Speaking about her mother going through whatever she did, Eshaa broke down in tears as she spoke to us and said, “My mother has suffered the most. I would say I also suffered but I can’t even say what my mother endured because she went through abuse through my father, through Rupali, physically, emotionally, mentally all that. She had to do multiple jobs for us to survive, it was crazy. I can’t even speak about financials right now. We lost our house, we lost so much. And the fact that Rupali has got everything, changed the will and the fact that she has gotten her own apartment in Mumbai and she is living a luxurious life, that’s not fair. You know, I think I am going to talk more on it later, but this is what I am going to say right now.”