The one woman everyone wants to know

It’s a good thing that Kaajal Anand rarely gives interviews, because you’re not assaulted by the usual stock responses and cheesy-smile-clichtes. “I don’t know why you even want to interview me? It’s not like I’ve started Facebook or Twitter,” she guffaws, with a dose of self-deprecating humour.

Kaajal’s suspicions are justified — do a Google search and you’ll find snippets that tout more about her exclusive party guest-lists and the constellation of boldfaced names she moves around with (Shah Rukh and Gauri Khan, Yash and Avanti Birla, Karan Johar et cetera). “I don’t enjoy being photographed; I find it frivolous and pointless. I think you need to be in the papers for your achievements, not for which parties you attend,” says the CEO of Birla Lifestyle. “I genuinely believe that! Because otherwise when you’re in the news for all this other nonsense, your five friends will say wow and the other 95 people will be laughing at you.”

Kaajal’s come a long way from her original profession of choice: Law. “I don’t know if I gave up on law or law gave up on me, but what happened was that after Sanjay’s (Dutt) case, I was so exhausted that I took a break…and never went back. I just found that the system takes too long and I’m a person who likes to see quick results. So I took time out and experimented.”

The result? Setting up high-fashion boutique Reverie with Avanti Birla and Manish Malhotra. “If you see me, you’ll know fashion is not my field,” she laughs. “I was a misfit. When you don’t have a passion for something, you play that role badly.” Then came Yantra — the ultra-luxe furniture store. When the me-toos in the furniture market started mushrooming, Kaajal flipped the channel and moved on — to set up health temple Evolve. “I was toying with this idea for a long time. I travel a fair amount and see how people are about cosmetic surgery in the west; it’s very casual. But it’s still a big thing here — people have this fear. There’s also a lot of misinformation out there and a lot of quacks.”

While Kaajal counts her lack of delusion as her greatest strength, who has been her rock? “My mother, and my friends. But it also depends on the problem. If it were to do with work or family, I’d speak to Yash. If I want the world’s most objective opinion, I would speak to Gauri. I find her the wisest, most sensible and most unbiased person that I know. She has the cleanest mind that I have seen. I’ve seen her really call it as it is — whether to Shah Rukh or to me. And I really respect that about her,” she says, smiling, “for just a purely sensitive view, I’d go to Karan. Also, I run a lot of business advice by Tanya (Dubash), because I respect her mind a lot and have great regard for her and her family.”