Kunal Kapoor and Naina Bachchan - The reluctant celebrity couple

Is your tea okay? I am very fussy about my cup, so I ask everyone," asks Naina Bachchan. We are sitting with the investment banker and her husband, actor Kunal Kapoor, at their Juhu home on Thursday evening. Naina is back from her Worli office, and is casually dressed in white sneakers, jeans and a tee, while Kunal is lounging in a white tee, pants and a beret. We sit in a room with two defining characteristics -- shelves full of books (arranged according to subjects like yoga, meditation and non-fiction) and a piano. "I think both of us have different ratios of creative and business acumen in our lives," says Naina, as if explaining how people who could be thought of as different as the two of them, can be together. She is right. Kunal, the creative one, is behind successful fundraising platform Ketto, and Naina, the business brain, is a trained pianist.

We know Kunal through movies like 'Rang De Basanti' and 'Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana'. The good-looking actor is currently shooting for Reema Kagti's 'Gold', where he stars with Akshay Kumar in a story about India's first hockey team to have won a gold internationally. He is also working on three scripts, which he hopes to act in too. Naina is actor Amitabh Bachchan's niece, one of four kids to his brother Ajitabh and wife Ramola. Her siblings include artist Namrata, aeronautical engineer Nilima and brother Bhim, an investment banker.

Kunal and Naina met seven years ago, and have been married for two-and-a-half years. Their low-profile social presence, barring a photo or two that Kunal shares on Instagram, prompted us to meet them to talk about all things that plague celebrity couples -- paparazzi, social media and why it's important to maintain your individuality in a marriage. Edited excerpts from an interview:

On finance vs creativity
Naina: I didn't educate him financially for Ketto at all. He had a vision, and over the course of time, we talked about it more and more, but I am not involved.

Kunal: Ketto is doing really well. In the last six years, we have raised over Rs 100 crores for various social causes. I have always believed people are good, and I see that with Ketto every day, when they give money to people they don't know. I do ask her for
financial advice since I am not good at that, and she is incredibly meticulous and planned. But, the good thing is that I really enjoy finance, in that I follow tech, start-ups, I invest in companies, and I have friends who are entrepreneurs, VCs, etc.

Naina: Actually, one of Kunu's closest friends observed -- the reason why we can appreciate each other's worlds is because his dad used to be in construction, so he had been around business, but he chose to be creative. I come from a creative family, and I am a pianist and speak four languages but I work in banking. We both understand where the other comes from, and the exchange of ideas comes naturally.

On work dealings
Naina: I spent 20 years in Europe, and so, a lot of the nuances of India were initially new. It helped to have his advice on relationships. So I'd say, 'I am facing this dilemma, what if someone says this, what does it mean?' My wiring is different.

Kunal: The work culture and mindset here is different. You need someone to give you a perspective.

Naina: In Europe, people are far more reserved, and I don't open up at work. It doesn't come too naturally to me. A professional environment is professional, but that can be misread. Also, here, my family is recognised, while in Europe I was anonymous. I have to be careful about how people perceive me. I don't want to give them the wrong impression.

On being low-key celebrities
Naina: I am both an introvert and an extrovert. When I play the piano, I can play alone for a long time -- I am comfortable in my own company. But I have loads of friends all around the world, and I handle people at work. I feel like my work challenged my
comfort zone, and that's how I really grew. I need to relate to people; you can't acquire clients if you don't know what is important to them.

Kunal: I don't think she is an introvert. She can converse with anybody, and that happens because she is interested in people. She has the ability to look at a person and read the situation well. I am very interested in people too. We laugh that when we go for dinner, I'm the snoop, and I want to know "who is talking what, who is having a fight, who is the leader of the pack" -- that's important to me as an actor.

On acting and the film business
Kunal: Actors are caught up with themselves. They are not only interested in what's happening outside, but what's going on inside too. They are constantly asking themselves "how did that make me feel, did I enjoy that, how did that person make me feel?" It's about constantly getting to know yourself, and how you can use that. It's a lot of introspection.

Naina: I have grown up around the film industry. I would say, having an independent identity has always been the need of the hour, because there are towering personalities in my family. You could get lost otherwise. Each one of my siblings is individualistic and different. For all of us, it's been important to introspect, and our parents created that environment.

On marriage
Naina: You are not a half, but a whole, and you come together as two wholes. Kunal wanted to be with someone like that, or he wouldn't have chosen me. He didn't want to merge with someone. We don't need the other to complete ourselves.

Kunal: People think that relationships mean two people doing two things together, but it's also about two people growing separately. Both people doing what they want, and being happy for each other, and then there is so much more to share.

Naina: When he calls me from a film set and says I am loving what I am doing, I don't feel the need to run there, and be a part of it just because he is loving it. If I have an amazing yoga class, or do something cool at work, he doesn't become a part of it. We are not codependent.

Kunal: Why should it be about the other person all the time? My friend (actor) Atul Kulkarni told me that marriage should be like a Venn diagram -- two circles come together and the place of intersection with another is the beautiful place you share. What usually ends up happening is that the two circles become one, and we get absorbed into the other.

On paparazzi and social media
Naina: It's each to their own, and what they are comfortable with. I don't pass judgement if people want to take pictures of their food. Maybe I could have a lot more media attention. I choose not to have it. Maybe that's weird for people. We are in an age of celebrity, and that's an anomaly. Recently, you guys took a picture of me standing behind Kunal and said "camera shy". I don't think I was camera shy. I was just stunned when two people jumped out of nowhere and started taking pictures.

Kunal: But you can't choose to like it only when it's convenient for you. It's a part of the package. The media is doing its job. Social media is just about projecting stuff, and a life.

On what binds them
Naina: We talk a lot about food. Kunal eats every two hours, and has a high metabolism, so it's bad for me. We have fought about it. We also talk about the books we are reading, things I am playing on the piano.
Kunal: We can talk for hours, about books, people...
Naina: But it's not gossip. We aren't interested in that at all.