Gautami Kapoor lost ‘spark’ with husband Ram Kapoor when he was jobless, recalls earning thrice his fee on Ghar Ek Mandir

Gautami Kapoor recalled the tough phases of her marriage with Ram Kapoor (Photo: Express Archives)

Actor Ram Kapoor has often opened up about staying at home for about a year due to no work, after marrying actor Gautami Kapoor in 2003. She even called it one of the most difficult phases of their marriage till now. In a recent interview, Gautami revealed that the actor couple lost their ‘spark’ during the tough period. She also revealed that while shooting their famous show Ghar Ek Mandir in 2000, she was getting paid four times more than what her husband Ram was earning.

During a candid chat with Siddharth Kannan, she reflected, “The tough phase was when Ram didn’t work for many years and I got back to television. For a man, it’s very difficult. I think inherently, men are made up in such a way that for them, they have to go to work… they have to be providers, protectors. That’s the way everybody sees a man. Of course, things are changing for the better because it’s not the same now.”

The actor continued, “So, he was at home for almost two and a half years, and that was really tough on him. I could see that restlessness, that anxiety, because I used to go to work at that time. I used to go at 9 am and come back at 10-11 pm. It was very difficult at that time for me to understand that he is just at home doing nothing, waiting for that one opportunity again for his career to escalate.”

However, after they welcomed their children – daughter Sia (2006) and son Aks (2009), their bond started improving with time. “This was before the kids. I was completely disconnected from home and he was at home. At that time, we thought what is going on. I used to come home, sleep, and then went in the morning again, so there was no communication between him and me. We kind of lost that spark, because I was doing my work and he was at home,” she shared.

Gautami further added, “But, when my kids came into the picture, his career started again. Things changed, the dynamics changed and everything got back together. But after kids come into the picture, and the kind of mother I have been, you forget that you are also a wife. You give so much to the children and the upbringing of your kids, you forget that you also have a relationship with your spouse, besides your children. Ram has never said that to me but I am sure he felt lost, the vacuum of a partner being there.”

But now, the actor couple is having the time of their life together. “Now, we are at a stage where my kids are older. Touchwood, we are back to what we used to be 20 years ago. It’s amazing because we have kind of rediscovered this whole magic. We laugh about it now, thinking what happened, how come we had different roles, finished them, and now we are back again at the age of 50. It’s amazing!” she said with excitement.

Talking about the couple’s popular 2000 TV show Ghar Ek Mandir, Gautami recalled, “The warmth of fans that we felt during the serial was in the first three months itself. I was getting a per day of Rs 5000 and Ram was getting Rs 1500 per day. Because I came from a hit film like Bindhaast, I was given a bigger per day than Ram.”

On the work front, Gautami Kapoor was last seen in De De Pyaar De 2, alongside Ajay Devgn, Rakul Preet Singh, and R Madhavan. She also starred in Aaryan Khan’s Netflix series The Ba****ds of Bollywood. She has Dhamaal 4 in the pipeline, set to release in May, this year.