Whenever I want peace of mind and a bit of relaxation, I run away to my cottage, in the hills of Panchgani, armed with a whole lot of DVDs. By design I don’t have a cable connection, but a fairly decent library of films has over the years taken shape. It was there that I saw Ayesha Takia and she made me cry. The film was Dor.She was so pretty, fragile and vulnerable, so Indian.

Therefore when I saw this pesky, sensual, modern, young girl, swaying towards me, with bangs and long straight hair, with the widest smile I have seen in a long while, I was sort of taken aback.

Farhan who was already there talking to me at Basilico, his restaurant in Bandra, saw my look, gave a wider smile and said, “She brings sexy back, huh!” She sure does.

It took all of 60 seconds to see the warm vibes the two share. They know each other for five years and have been dating for four. When Farhan first saw her (when she entered Basilico at Colaba), he didn’t know she was an actress, actor if you prefer, but he was already in business with her dad. Together they had opened Koyla in Hyderabad.  “She was a very obvious kind of a girl. There were and are no pretensions about her. Overall she is a rather reserved girl” says Farhan. But of course he has no reservations about the fact that she is in the big, bad world of films, “She is very welcome to continue acting even after we are married, it’s up to her.  She’s far better than a lot of them in the industry, she is not rebellious, she doesn’t strip, and her dad is cool about her chosen profession, so there you are…” Good, I like confident and secure men, and Farhan scores brownie points from UpperCrust just for this.

Ayesha surprised me when she told me she has already worked in 12 movies. And she is only 23! As a young girl she lived in Chembur where she went to school at St. Anthony’s Convent. With disarming candidness she said she was just an average student who loved to draw and paint. Which she still does and is very good at it, informed the proud fiancée. However Ayesha has been ‘working’ since she was kid. As a child model. For companies like Cibaca, Godrej and  Complan where she and Shahid Kapoor modelled together. At just 14 she hosted a show called, The Disney Show for Disney Channel. “It was a lot of fun”, she reminisces, “because I worked with people my age”. I believe even today she has a huge fan-ship among children. At 16 Ayesha signed her first movie, Socha Na Tha, with Abhay Deol. Tarzan followed, and then there were others like, Dil Mange More, Yun Hota To Kya Hota,  Shaadi No. 1, Shaadi Se Pehele (she grimaces and says she’d like to forget the last two). Dor the only movie that I have seen was I believe the breakthrough one. I can vouch for that, she was really good there. What’s in the pipeline are interesting ventures: Wanted by Boney Kapoor which is going to be Prabhu Deva’s directorial debut. Tasveer by Naagesh Kukunoor opposite Akshay Kumar, Pathshala by Ahmed Khan with Shahid Kapoor. So is she friends with a lot of her co-stars? “No, not really. I pretty much keep to myself. I share a good working rapport with them, but most of my friends are not from the industry”. Then adds, “most of my friends are Farhan’s friends”

And does it all gel? The mixed genes not withstanding? Ayesha comes from a family background which has a Gujarati father, a Punjabi mum, an English grand-dad, a Portuguese grand-mum with an aunt married to a Maharashtrian and she is now marrying a muslim whose family which hails from Azamgarh and can safely trace its roots to the Moghuls who ruled in India! But these are not thoughts that cross the minds of the young. In fact look at the advantage: a cross section of cuisines that the two are exposed to! European,Gujju, Punjabi, muslim.

No wonder then that both are absolute foodies. Ayesha says Farhan loves home food: parathas, khakras and dahi, methi ka masala and other Gujju snacks, the man himself adds, “And I love dal-chawal with ghee ka bagaar, and my biggest weakness is baigan bharta and bhindi gosht, the way my mom makes it, the sticky-ness from the bhindi, just right!” Ask Farhan what are Ayesha’s favourite  and he is spot on, “mutton biryani and anything mutton! But she also loves sushi and sashimi which I hate, can’t stand raw stuff!”

Both look after their diets, but binge every 8 or 10 days. “I eat whatever I want and like mad!” says Ayesha most exuberantly. And while Farhan, who is the son of politician Abu Azmi, works out at Fitness One, the gym his mum has started, Ayesha works out at home, treadmill, stepper, light stuff, yoga with the help of TV and Ramdev Baba. “I can’t exercise in front of 50 people in public spaces”, she says with great finality.

How do you spend time together? Describe one of your dates for me, I asked them. Here is the answer. “One day we went from Andheri (Ayesha now lives at at Versova) to Colaba. We stopped at Kareem’s and ate Sheekh Kebab, then we came here to Basilico and ate a mezze platter, char grilled ravas, the chef’s signature mustard grilled beef steak with parsley and caramalised onion, downed by Caffe Latte. After that we stopped at Shivaji Park and ate a frankie from the famous road side stall. Well after that we landed up at Koyla (another of Farhan’s restaurants at Colaba, near the Radio Club, on a terrace), and sat at our private table and ate a full dinner (awesome butter chicken, the softest naans, the yummiest gulab jamun) with sheesha, complete.” And pray, what is this private table thingy? It’s a 50 square foot elevated area, right at the far end of the restaurant, screened with foliage and out of bounds for the aam janata, overlooking the Arabian Sea, with just one table and one mashal for glow and warmth! Hmm… talk about romance.

Which brings us to the all important question, when are the wedding bells going to chime? “Who knows!” chirps the girl who lovingly wears a huge ruby ring identical to the one her man wears. It’s something they bought in Thailand, on their first ever holiday together, four years ago. A pledge to eternal love? We can only hope. Here’s wishing the two lots of love, plenty of luck, immense joy and many babies who will come bawling in this world with an exotic cocktail of genes!