Sonam Kapoor: “I don’t have personal opinions on people anymore. That was immature”

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.