A Tale of Three Cities

Since moving to Los Angeles in 2012, designer and former Miss India Neha Kapur has carved out a fresh identity. Now, in her recently finished New Delhi nest, she reflects on the past decade and how life has finally come full circle.

- VAISHNAVI NAYEL TALAWADEKAR

It's just past 10am when I reach Neha Kapur's housing enclave in South Delhi, but the guard at the gate has no intention of letting me in. No cabs allowed, I'm told, although he is unwilling to commit how far I have to leg it. With half an hour to go (my meeting is scheduled for 10.30am), I convince myself that it can't be that far. So I pop on my sunhat and slip through the gate, in search of the magic number I have scrawled on my palm. Only, several mistaken turns later, I still can't find it. Finally, a dhobi kindly points me to a cul-de-sac I'd passed several times, but never noticed-with a four-storey fortress hidden in plain sight.

When I step out of the elevator, the door is wide open and Kapur is seated on a shimmering shamrock divan. She smiles when she sees me, her cheeks deepening into dimples as she glides over to welcome me with a warm hug. Even in a pristine white kurta pyjama, hair left down and sans makeup, the former Miss India effortlessly channels part mondaine, part demigoddess.

As we settle in Kapur's living room, her coffee table has already been set up with floral arrangements, bowls of savouries and glistening pots of tea (she's a 1 Magnolia Lane and Good Earth loyalist). The palatial chandelier and wall sconces (which I later learn are handmade by artisans in Rajasthan) are turned on, making the room glow like a jewel box. "The spot where we're sitting, I grew up here," she muses, pouring me a cup of honey tea. "It used to be a two-storey house back in the day. My schooling, my college, everything happened here." By the time she got married to actor Kunal Nayyar of The Big Bang Theory fame in 2011 and moved to Los Angeles, her childhood home had fallen into disrepair, and Kapur and her brothers, along with their parents, decided to tear down the original structure and build afresh. Instead of two floors, they built four-one for her parents and one for each sibling.