Edited Excerpts From The Conversation:
Tape: Welcome to Tape cast ladies. I'm happy to have two formidable women with me. Sonam Kapoor meet Masaba Gupta. The prodigy child of the fashion industry. A woman who is sassy, smart, not afraid to be herself or take on the trolls. Masaba Gupta, meet Sonam Kapoor, a fashion icon in India, who's been a former assistant director on the set of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Black. It is there she discovered her love for acting and has there on been experimenting with all sorts of roles.
Tape: Masaba, how has the unique relationship with your parents had an impact on your ideas of marriage? What insight did it give you into what makes a relationship work?
Masaba Gupta: I don't like to compare lives you know. I don't feel that whatever happened to my parents has anything to do with what's going to happen to me. Everyone tells me, you might never get married, or you might shy away from it, but I did get married very young. I got married at 26 and I felt like they both were never negative about the institution of marriage, they both had failed marriages and I feel that hasn't impacted their clarity of thought with respect to me. And my mom's always maintained that you should get married.
Sonam Kapoor: Your mom's very forward thinking but very conservative when it comes to you.
Masaba Gupta: Very. And she didn't let me live-in with Madhu. She said you have to get married. Why do you think I got married in such a rush? The fact that they've had such an unconventional relationship has made me believe in marriage more than anything else. And also because I have a mother who thinks it's essential to get married, to be taken seriously as a woman in India, she's actually told me this.
Sonam Kapoor: Are you serious?
Masaba Gupta: It's such a contrast from who she is and the way she's lived her life, but she tells me that all the time and she's always maintained that keep that family and you know you have to work, but don't ever have a child out of wedlock. Don't ever repeat what I did. Because it's hard on a woman and you know and there's a lack of respect for women like that.
Sonam Kapoor: It's just very patriarchal society unfortunately and very misogynist,
Tape: Sonam, I hear you're very stubborn when it comes to not talking about your partner, most people know you are in a relationship. Why don't you acknowledge it?
Sonam Kapoor: I acknowledge it to my very close friends and my family.
Masaba Gupta: But why haven't you ever dated anyone in the industry?
Sonam Kapoor: So you're going to tell everyone that I've never dated anyone from the film industry! Because it feels like it's a little incestruous. And it's just too much if you want to grow as a person. Also I'm not attracted to anybody in the industry.
Masaba Gupta: I can't bear it.
Tape: Masaba, someone very close to you has a question for you. Here it is – 'Masaba, what do you want?'
Masaba Gupta: What do you want? That's all? That's my mom!
Sonam Kapoor: Why are you taking off on your mother?
Masaba Gupta: I don't know I just want peace of mind personally, professionally. But I want to be able to find or make meaningful relationships. You know, just find them.
Sonam Kapoor: But how many more people do you want?
Masaba Gupta: I don't want more people. But in the people I meet I want to find meaning in them. Or find kindness. I think that's one thing.
Sonam Kapoor: Compassion. It's a very rare quality.
Tape: The question to you Sonam is by your dad Anil Kapoor. He asks – What is the one thing I do that embarasses you?
Sonam Kapoor: Why? The question supposed to be about me. Why is it become about him?
Masaba Gupta: I know something but you say.
Sonam Kapoor: I get very embarrassed when he is says very glowing things about me to everybody.
Masaba Gupta: But that's all parents. My mother keeps reposting my insta and says lovely, her caption is always 'lovely'. I said mom you can't be the mother who says the child is lovely.
Sonam Kapoor: My father is a very shy man. He's very shy and only when the camera comes on, he starts performing. He's very soft spoken, he barely speaks.
Masaba Gupta: My best memory in your house is when we're sitting on that floor and your dad will walk in and say 'I love this room. I love the energy of the youth in this room', and he sits there.
Sonam Kapoor: And my friends love it. I'm like why do you wanna hang out with my dad? I'll be like dad please leave dad.
Tape: Masaba, you've been massively trolled on social media. In fact after you supported the cracker ban, you were called an illegitimate child. Did the trolling dent your spirit in any way? How did you stay so strong?
Masaba Gupta: It didn't dent my spirit. I think I find that a fighter emerged in me after that. Not just illegitimate, I was called worse things and I find that whenever I stand up for something, there's a bunch of people on social media who just stand up and say but you're not from here. So why are you commenting on this and you know some people went on to say why are you selling clothes to us if you hate crackers. It has nothing to do with anything.
Sonam Kapoor: People are just ignorant.
Masaba Gupta: I have one theory on social media – because we're all so connected and we keep seeing and reading things that as long as there's a nameless faceless person sitting there in the comfort of their home, and just trolling you, you can't get bummed by it.
Sonam Kapoor: No obviously, because they're cowards. It's cowardly, I feel it's so cowardly I feel sorry for them they obviously have no life.