Sonam Kapoor is looking at the stars. We’re on the rooftop garden of a heritage hotel in Ahmedabad, across the road from the 500-year-old Sidi Saiyyed Mosque. Minutes ago, we polished off a traditional Gujarati thali at Agashiye—handvo, jalebis, khatti dal, three chapatis, thirteen kinds of chutneys and a dozen other things I was too busy eating to make a note of. As we walk towards our chairs, her entourage also moves in sync until she stops, turns and asks, “Are all of you going to follow us? Can I please speak to him alone?”
So we do, with only her Dior Toujours bag resting on the glass table beside us for company. “I can’t believe we can see the stars,” she says, her mouth agape. Only a few days ago, she’d shared news reports on her Instagram stories about Mumbai’s worsening air quality. Another reel she shared showed a smog-covered view of what should have been the sea, taken from a city high-rise. ‘This is the price of our dreams,’ it said.
“Every morning, I sit by my window sill, after oil pulling and dry brushing and watch...well, Mumbai’s crows,” she shrugs. “My son has picked up my habit of checking the AQI. If it’s bad, he stays indoors.”
In Ahmedabad, away from the dystopia of the city we call home, we slow down. It’s the night of Holika Dahan and bonfires flicker across the UNESCO Heritage City. It feels natural to be shooting with Kapoor at Amdavad ni Gufa, the 30-year-old underground marvel by the late architect BV Doshi and the late artist MF Husain. She has never been to the Gufa, but her bond with the city runs deep.
As a child, she’d follow her mother through Amdavadi markets filled with patolas and mashrus, watching her carefully choose textiles and flip fabrics to study the loose threads on their reverse. In those quiet moments, her love for India’s craft took root. So, it was only natural that in 2018, she returned for the fittings of her wedding lehenga by Anuradha Vakil. In 2025, she is back again for Vogue India.
How do we view Sonam Kapoor in these intervening years? She must be well aware of the shifting narratives that have followed her—from the promise of Saawariya (2007) to the acclaim of Delhi-6 (2009) and Raanjhanaa (2013) to the commercial success of Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (2015) and Veere Di Wedding (2018) and the three misfires that followed. The memes, fuelled by her press appearances and Koffee With Karan, have been relentless. After a brief hiatus, she’s returning with a film she calls an unexpected choice. She is also the Dior fashion and beauty ambassador for Capture.
“What do you think about how I am perceived?” she asks, resting her cheek on her palm, less puzzled than curious.“What’s the predominant opinion about me?”
I tell her that no two people see her the same way, and this has been true throughout her career. When she chose Vakil for her wedding lehenga over mainstream designers, the fashion world praised her, but a comedian quipped that she had gotten married just to promote Veere Di Wedding. At Cannes 2016, some applauded her white Ralph & Russo gown, while others likened it to a dosa or a rumali roti. In 2023, when she tweeted about Mumbai’s chaotic traffic and pollution, a user responded by saying that her car was not emission-free and her house must have also caused pollution when it was constructed.
Kapoor doesn’t hold back when news unsettles her, once sharing an Anne Frank quote on the ‘world being slowly transformed into a wilderness’ alongside an MF Husain painting, in response to a controversial legislation. Some commend her for speaking up; others, predictably, tell her to stick to song and dance.
“When I was young, I had too many opinions. With age, you realise it’s better to listen than to speak,” she says. “I don’t have personal opinions on people anymore, like I did. That wasn’t nice. It was immature.”
While it’s been a lesson on how some opinions are best kept to herself, her stance on the environment, or anything sociopolitical has always been the same. “I’ve been clear about my beliefs and I don’t give in to leading questions anymore for clickbait headlines. If someone asks me a question, they already know what my stance is. I’ve said everything there is to say.”
Kapoor has played the game for far too long and learnt her lessons. It can be traced back to her childhood—being passionate about the beauty of creation, not taking it for granted and expressing how it made her feel. She grew up on a steady stream of books, yet calls herself intellectually and emotionally ‘average’. She also fixated on her mother’s wardrobe investments, analysing and caring for them, learning how to distinguish a jamdani from a jamawar shawl, a chanderi from a Banarasi.
Kapoor never went to college. Yet, at night, it’s the one dream that returns—walking through campus, poring over books under the glow of a lamp. “My husband went to Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania. When he recently took me around the campus, it was the first time I felt envy. So I’ve been saving up for Vayu’s education. I want him to be a reader.”
The next day, we meet inside the Gufa and the mature, ruminative Kapoor of last night has given way to a child of fashion showing off her toys with glee. She lights up describing the vintage zari blouse she’s wearing for her Vogue India shoot, once owned by Parmeshwar Godrej. “Can you believe it? Her daughter, Tanya Dubash, even lent us Parmeshwar Aunty’s signature beret.”
Then she swoons over an archival pink sari-inspired gown by John Galliano for Dior. Later, she steps into another iconic piece: a version of Jennifer Lopez’s legendary Versace dress from the 2000 Grammys, purchased by her sister, Rhea, from a vintage market—the viral, sheer jungle-print gown that led to the creation of Google Images.
Beyond art and fashion, family is her anchor. “Companionship is necessary,” she says. Last night, her husband, Anand Ahuja, left for work, and during this shoot, neither of them would be home with their son, Vayu. “I was unsettled, so I spent the night with my sister [Rhea, who styled her for the shoot] and her assistants.”
In the company of those she trusts, nothing can harm her. The space to just be herself is always available because she has had the same group of friends since she was 18. Despite this strong support system, she “would like to start therapy because the world is different now. It’s hard to grapple with what’s going on. There is a sensory overload; it’s difficult to regulate your emotions. In Mumbai, you don’t even have nature, so how do you ground yourself?”
Kapoor no longer chases milestones. She has worked with nearly every director she has wanted to, spoken out when it mattered and has no desire to launch a brand, preferring to invest in and wear those she believes in. “You can become jaded in this industry,” she admits. “But having a child brings back wonder and idealism. I was one hundred per cent jaded before Vayu’s birth. I want to walk in his shoes—you don’t know what a two-year-old is thinking—just so I can be a better parent.”
Yet, even with experience and motherhood, the question lingers: am I good enough? “I doubt myself every day,” she says.
The self-criticism, though, never reaches a crushing nadir, à la Elisabeth Sparkle in The Substance. She doesn’t feel compelled to rip off her eyelashes or long for a new body. “I’ve never gotten Botox,” she says. “When they say I wear this or that, it’s not just about the clothes. Why can’t I simply be comfortable in my skin?”
This is why she believes no child, especially star kids, should grow up in the spotlight. Her parents had kept her and her siblings away from its harsh glare. “It’s a fishbowl that sucks you in, becoming your world. If I hadn’t gone to Arya Vidya Mandir and made normal friends, I wouldn’t be who I am today—someone who loves books, dance, music and art.”
Perhaps it’s this constant negotiation between self and performance, between the safety of home and the gaze of the world, that makes her come alive in spaces like Amdavad ni Gufa—where art and nature, structure and spontaneity entwine. Kapoor is at ease here, slipping in and out of the cave in rubber flats so that she doesn’t skid on its undulating floor. She admires Husain’s murals and Doshi’s igloo-like pillars after every change, letting her gaze linger on a galloping horse here, a sun motif there.
In a 2018 interview with the Louisiana Channel, Doshi spoke of nature’s deep influence on his work, a philosophy shaped by his time at Le Corbusier’s Paris atelier. “He sketched snakes, cockroaches, plants, water and trees, all in pursuit of one idea: integration,” Doshi said. “If you can integrate all these elements... life will happen.”
Inside the Gufa, Husain’s beetles, dancing humans and painted windows echo this vision. Outside, Kapoor poses atop its domed mosaic roof, inspired by tortoise shells and soap bubbles. Dressed in a vintage Jean-Paul Gaultier bodysuit from her personal collection and jeans embroidered with an array of signature Anamika Khanna swatches, her waist is cinched with keys and locks in the manner in which her sister remembers their nani often carrying them. As her anklets chime and she reaches for a golden beam of light, a peacock perches on the boundary wall on her left. Behind her, a dog naps on a dome and langurs swing through the neem trees. By the time the shoot wraps, last night’s stars have returned.
Life did happen.
Photographed by Ashish Shah
Styled by Rhea Kapoor
Hair: Hiral Bhatia/Entourage Talents
Makeup: Namrata Soni
Bookings Editor: Aliza Fatma
Sr. Designer: Shagun Jangid
Entertainment Director: Megha Mehta
Senior Entertainment Editor (Consultant): Rebecca Gonsalves
Production: Imran Khatri Productions
Assisted by: Anish Oommen (photography); Manisha Melwani, Abhilasha Devnani, Sanya Kapoor, Diptee Aggarwal, Bidipto Das, Ria Kothari, Niyati Jadhav, Ishita Jain, Kyra Jashnani, Mallika Bhatia (styling); Ridhi Matreja (makeup); Aashima Chopra (bookings); Radhika Chemburkar (production)
Location courtesy: Amdavad Ni Gufa
This story appears in Vogue India’s March-April 2025 issue, now on stands. Subscribe here.
Also read:
Sonam Kapoor Ahuja: “Priorities do change and I think that the child will become mine”
Sonam K Ahuja on Anand S Ahuja: “I knew he was the love of my life”
