It is hard to believe Kareena Kapoor, plus Khan, is now 45! I met her for the first time when we were both much younger. She came to the airport with my closest friend in Mumbai, Sanjay Leela Bhansali and what followed was… bedlam, though in a nice way.
I had no idea she was going to be there. Sanjay and Kareena were in a pact of confidentiality about her presence to welcome me.
So when I came out from the landing area, I was surprised to see a lot of commotion outside. People who had come to receive their loved ones forgot about why they were there.
“Arrey woh Kareena ayee hai!” — I heard someone explain.
Then it happened. I stood unsurely in the area reserved for taxis when I saw this beautiful girl run across the lengthy stretch from the other side , holding in her hands the most gorgeous bouquet of yellow roses mankind has ever seen.
As Kareena ran, the junta made way. It was the parting of the Red Sea.
It is a golden moment in my choppy relationship with the film industry. For many years, I was Kareena’s mentor and friend. When my daughter, then barely 10 , came to Mumbai with me for the first time, Kareena looked after her like her own sister.
She bullied me once into attending a Bombay Times party in my jeans and tee-shirt as I didn’t have formal clothes with me. Kareena offered to hop over and buy me formals (an offer I politely rejected).
When her sister broke up with Abhishek, Kareena was apprehensive that it would affect my rapport with her. It didn’t. But she eventually moved. We no longer speak. Now, I am closer to her husband Saif than Kareena. And that’s another story.
