Dimple, All Day

YOU MAY HAVE WATCHED HER ON THE BIG SCREEN FOR OVER FIVE DECADES, BUT DON'T MAKE THE MISTAKE OF ASSUMING THAT YOU KNOW DIMPLE KAPADIA.

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SADAF SHAIKH ATTEMPTS TO PEEL BACK THE LAYERS AND DISCOVERS THAT THE TEXTBOOK GEMINI IS EQUAL PARTS FORTHCOMING AND MYSTERIOUS

I almost tumble into Dimple Kapadia's Juhu apartment and shoot a mortified look at her, trying to assess the level of anger she is at. I am half an hour late to our meeting, although through no fault of my own unseasonal showers have brought traffic across Mumbai to a standstill and my cab broke down on the way here. Erring on the side of caution, I called ahead and informed her manager that I would be delayed, but if there's one thing I have learnt from interviewing celebrities for over a decade, it's that you wait on them-never the other way around. Come rain, shine or red alert.

I sit on the couch across from Kapadia, offering profuse apologies and bracing myself for a dressing-down. Instead, the star leans forward and asks, "Are you feeling okay?" Before I can respond, she follows up with another question: "Is the Uber driver okay?" Dumbstruck, I mumble a monosyllabic yes. "Good," she says with a smile, genuinely pleased, almost as if she were sending out a prayer to tide him over the rest of the inclement day.

A week ago, when Kapadia walked onto the set at Mehboob Studios to shoot her first-ever Vogue India cover, she hoped the gods were smiling down similarly upon her. To be doubly sure, she bent down at the entrance to the studio, placed three fingers on the threshold, put them back to her lips and kissed them; then did the same with the camera. "Was that some sort of a pre-shoot ritual?" I now ask her.

"That was a prayer to the universe to save my ass," she says earnestly.