Did the news of triplets come as a pleasant surprise?
Yes. At 40, I didn't know whether I'd have even one kid. At 43, I'm going to have three. It's not something that I was dying for, but now that I'm expecting, I like the idea. For Shirish (Kunder, her husband, maker of Jaan-E-Man), who's an introvert, the idea of having a big family is even more important.
• Was it Shirish who wanted kids, then?
Yeah, he told me right at the outset that I should see him only if I were ready to get married and have kids. He asked me not to do 'time-pass' with him. Left to myself, I'd have happily settled for just such a time-pass relationship.
• How does he handle a high profile wife, who always speaks her mind and has Shah Rukh Khan for her best friend?
He doesn't care. He doesn't talk much because he doesn't feel the need to express his opinions, that's all. Also, being eight years younger to me, he comes from a more irreverent generation. I'm the conservative, sometimes I get shocked at the amount of money he asks for his work. But he goes ahead and gets these huge amounts.
• Have you both thought of working together, as in making a film together?
No thanks. Shirish would kill me if we worked together. His vision is completely different from mine, and he's so dominating. We almost killed each other when I choreographed for him for Jaan-E-Man.
• Are you shopping for the kids?
I'm not allowed to go shopping. Kids apart, I need maternity clothes for myself too. Karan (Johar) is doing that for me. He travels a lot, and travels with my list. Recently he called me from London, saying that he couldn't believe he was standing in the lingerie department of Marks & Spencer, buying maternity bras for me!
• Isn't Shirish shopping?
I've told Shirish to hang on, otherwise he'll go berserk, shopping. And he hasn't the faintest idea of what to get. He's buying things like computers, etc - for the kids.
• That's an exaggeration.
It isn't! The other day, he actually bought a keyboard for the kids. I'm trying to tell him that the kids are going to be very small for a while!
• How excited is your brother Sajid?
Sajid is now too excited about the success of his film, Heyy Babyy, to think or talk of anything else.
• Are you ready for the changes that the kids will bring in your life?
I guess so. I’m going to take a year off, be with them. I guess I’ll be feeding all the time. How often do babies feed?
• Every two hours.
Oh God! That’s impossible. Anyway, I think my kids will have to grow up leading a bohemian lifestyle. I’ll take them to the sets, and they’ll have to play there. They’re already at ease on the sets. In the first couple of months, when I used to retch all the time, my stomach would always settle down when I went to the sets.
• Is the film industry still regressive? Does it still need a little more spunk to be a woman here?
Well, the distributors are fine. They’ve stopped caring whether they buy a film from a man, woman or eunuch, as long as they recover their money. But yes, male directors still don’t want to let us join the boys’ club. Which is fine with me. Besides, plenty of male directors make pseudo-sensitive women-based films, which they accuse women directors of making. So what are they talking about, anyway?
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