“This year, Shraddha’s birthday celebration will be huge as all of us including the extended family are in the Maldives,” says dad Shakti Kapoor, talking about actor Shraddha Kapoor who is attending the wedding of her cousin, Priyank Sharma, aunt (actor) Padmini Kolhapure’s son. “Wedding and birthday will be big time, sab saath mein hai, toh maza aayega,” he adds.

The senior actor shares that his daughter enjoys her work and feels elated when people appreciate her performances. “As a person, no one can be better than her. In fact, she has qualities that I don’t have (laughs). She has a heart of gold. She is generous and an animal lover. I am so happy that even today when she is so successful, she listens to me, consults me on all major decisions in life. She has given me that respect. I have no complaints in life. I am blessed. She is God’s gift to me, an angel, a golden child. I remember, in school, she would perform on stage and I felt she could become an actor but as she was an intelligent student, she went to study in the US. I never thought she would be an actor. But achanak, when I returned from shoot one fine day, I heard she had signed Teen Patti (2010),” says the actor, revealing that as a birthday gift, Shraddha wants him to give up smoking.

Ask him on what he wants for her and he replies, “As a father, I want my children to settle down in life. But ab kab karenge.. let’s see. Today, times have changed and people settle late in life unlike our times when people got married at 20. I guess, each to one’s own. I have no complaints.”