Nayandeep Rakshit (DNA; November 14, 2017)

Kunal Kemmu and wife Soha Ali Khan were blessed with a baby girl, around a month-and-half back. They named her Inaaya Naumi Kemmu. Much like Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor Khan, Soha and Kunal too didn’t stop paparazzi from clicking them with their baby. The proud and happy new-dad is all smiles about his new journey as a parent and gives us interesting details, as we sit down for a candid chat. Over to him...

You and Soha decided to not hide your baby’s face again, from the paparazzi, even at the hospital. Is that a conscious move?
I feel it’s a personal choice. You only do what you think will be good for the baby. It’s like some think bachche ki maalish karna zaruri hai. I don’t think someone who doesn’t do it is wrong. There’s no formula to this. It’s about what makes you feel secure. If you are like I don’t want flashes on my baby’s face, it’s fine. You have to respect that space. Some people behave differently. I know a few people who give their babies to everybody and I also know the ones who feel otherwise because they think babies are infection-prone. They will go sanitise the room all the time. I have a dog and my dog is in the same room as my baby. Some parents don’t want dogs in their kids’ rooms until they are five or six. Everyone has their own way of figuring it out and there’s no need to change it for anybody else.

What kind of a dad are you?
I don’t know that yet! I am still figuring out because I’m just a month-old dad. I’m a mix of both the worlds. There’s no hard and fast rule for me as well.

Has life changed post Inaaya?
I would like to think so! On other days, I would go back home, put up my feet and watch something on TV or call my friends home, make a plan to go out. Now, I just want to go back home to my baby and watch her. And talk about her. Everything else comes later. Priorities have changed for sure. There’s more to come.

Who came up with the name?
It’s weird. It just came to me. When you know you are having a baby, the first thing is you think about the names you can call your baby. Everyone goes through this and we also had a list. Inaaya just happened to strike me. I had never heard the name before but I must have had some connection with it and everyone quite liked the name. But it was one of the names I had chosen. Naumi was another name that I really liked. And my daughter has a middle name too. We were going with Inaaya but then, she was born on Mahanavami, so this was too much of a coincidence. Even though she will always be known as Inaaya, her official name will be Inaaya Naumi Kemmu.

Are you on diaper duty too?
I’m not, right now! I am also not very good at it because I haven’t tried it. I am letting the professionals do it. But I don’t mind taking on that duty. I want to be a very hands-on dad. I have always loved kids and enjoyed a lovely relationship with all of them. I want to do everything that a dad should do. And I’ll find out. I might choose to do diaper duty and not like it at all. But I would do it once to at least check if I can do it.

What about sleeping patterns — how much have they changed?
A little bit. Soha’s patterns are completely different now. And she’s doing a great job, I’m so proud of her. I experienced it in the first four-five days. At the hospital, in the nights, I would wake up at odd hours. Even now, I do.

How different will you be from your dad?
I have had a great relationship with my dad. Like everyone, I too have had my share of problems with him, as a kid, and at times, we still don’t agree on things and we have arguments. Still, I love the way my father has been around me. He has always treated me as a sensible person, even when I was a kid and listened to me and taken my opinions seriously. That is one thing I would want to do. Of course, I’m a father and there are certain decisions I will take for my kid till she is of an age where she can voice what she wants. But I would always want to have a dialogue. It won’t be like, ‘Maine bol diya toh bol diya’. It might backfire at times.

Who’s going to be stricter — you or Soha?
Definitely her. Because I love kids and it’s a girl. She just smiles at me and I’m done. Soha will have to be stricter because I definitely can’t.

Riteish Deshmukh said that post fatherhood, he looked at movies differently. Has that happened to you too?
Anyway, I haven’t done anything I’m not comfortable with. If it’s a dark film or a serial killer film, I would do it because I love that space. It doesn’t matter if it’s an adult film content-wise. If I haven’t been comfortable doing a certain kind of sex comedy, I haven’t done them anyway. So, I don’t think I have to change anything. But yes, when I was 21, I used to think my mum and my sister will be watching this film. Right now, I have to think that my daughter will be 18 one day and she, too, will watch my films.