This is the first time I am speaking on these things," Kiran conceded with a laugh as this interview drew to a close, and Aamir interjected with a "So, you have a scoop!"

Indeed, such has been the tenacity of the silence that Kiran Rao has maintained over the years that her speaking on simple things – what she is all about and what the equation between her and Aamir is like – is indeed a rarity.

"It has been a conscious call. I've always felt that until I have something to say as an individually creative person, who's not just someone's partner or aunt or mother or sister, it's pretty pointless having a point of view. Everybody has something to say, don't they? I was very clear that until I've come into my own as a creative person, I wouldn't want to impose my worldviews on the world, not when there's enough of it jamming the airwaves already!"

Kiran is now venturing into the territory of independent filmmaking with her own production house – which however will be part of the overall banner of AKP, she emphasises – and will also be directing the first film she is going to produce, Dhobi Ghaat , a low budget film with a story based in present-day Mumbai. In an industry that sees the family and the overarching big banner as synonymous, the tendency to take an independent track is not a common one.

And while the industry has several couples, both of whom are actors or singers in their own right, there is no couple where the husband and wife are both directors. There is no couple where they are both producers. And there certainly is no couple where the husband and wife are both producers and directors – who, as Aamir subtly adds, "think differently". What's made her chart this course and how does she see cinema differently?

"My working with Aamir was pretty accidental. I am not from a filmi family. A friend of mine who was working with Lagaan asked me if I would like to work as part of the team, and I agreed. Prior to that, I must have watched, like, ten Hindi movies in my life. I didn't know much about Hindi films at all" – "and one of the films she did know about was Rangeela ," Aamir gleefully interrupts here. Rangeela?

"I had to write a paper on Rangeela when I was in MCRC in Jamia," Kiran explains. And then tells us about another Aamir connection. "Oddly enough, for no particular reason, QSQT was the first complete Hindi film I ever watched, as a young adult. I must have been about 14 then. I'll never forget that because, it was the first movie I watched on our new VCR."

Now that she's his spouse, what's it like working with him? "After Lagaan , we worked together on TZP, after almost four years. So it isn't as if we work together all the time. But working with Aamir is a really amazing experience. It's exciting and intense, and yet it's a lot of fun... I knew that working with him was something I would love to do all my life. We work well together, and while as professionals we have our own aesthetics, our own ideas, we still understand each other and have a lot of common ground." If they work that well together, what is the rationale of the new venture, then?

"The reason I started an independent company is because I am interested in cinema for cinema's sake. I don't understand the dynamics of commercial cinema very well. I watch a lot of films, experimental, avant-grade, animation – I'd like to see more films like the one I am making, I feel it needs encouragement of a different nature from commercial cinema, which is driven by market requirements. Besides the films I direct, as a producer I hope to take up subjects that mainstream producers will shy away from handling."

With two such eat-drink-breathe-cinema people under the same roof, how often does conversation about work and movies come to the dinner table – after all, it is quite the current convention for many leading cine families to emphasise that it does not? "Oh, we don't discuss cinema in general too often, but we certainly keep talking about the things that we are doing, our plans. That doesn't just come to the dining table, it comes to the bed, the bath, the balcony, pretty much everywhere!" Kiran exclaims.