Navin Ansal and Raseel Gujral belong to the Capital?s first set of celebrities. Besides being husband and wife, they are also business partners running their interior d?cor company Casa Paradox together. While Raseel?s is the creative brain behind this successful venture, Navin is the one looking after the business aspect of it.

Raseel is from an old Delhi family, most of the members of which are creative people in their respective fields. Her father is respected artist Satish Gujral, while her brother Mohit is one of Delhi?s best-known architects and sister Alpana, a jewellery designer. Navin, who did his schooling from Lawrence School, Sanawar and studied at Hindu College, University of Delhi, is from a completely different background, belonging to a family of landowners from Punjab. Yet, the different social milieus they hail from have not stopped them from creating their own and being one of Delhi?s most good-looking couples.

Raseel on Navin

Navin and I met at a time in both our lives when we were at crossroads, both personally as well as professionally. We both wanted to start life in a new direction. Navin had just relocated from his family home in Ferozepur in Punjab, wanting to start a more professional career. I had been working as an interior designer for some time with various design houses but had reached a point where I had enough confidence to want to begin something of my own. I had all the ideas in place and had done sufficient amount of R & D to know that it was not only possible but would also be viable. It was meeting Navin and discovering that we both had similar creative ideas that set off this project.

Though we met in 1992 and got married only in 1998, we had been living together for some years before that so it?s an old relationship, really. We know each other so well that most often we don?t even have to communicate our thoughts and feelings to each other, we just know. Even if I say so myself, it?s a good relationship and I feel things only get better with time. The pure romance of a relationship, that heady feeling, only lasts about six months, in any case. What does last, however, are your interests in similar things, your values and priorities and your wish to build life in the same way. Along with that, if you also share the same professional and personal goals, it?s bound to be better.

Our children are also a great source of joy to us. Navin and I were both married before we got together and we have children from our previous marriages. He has a daughter from his previous marriage who?s 20 years old and I have a son from mine who?s also about 20 and our child is just five years old. We were always one big happy family but the baby has sort of thrown us all together. Navin and I love reading and we often browse bookshops together, exchange notes on what we?ve read recently, recommend books to each other and decide who gets to read what first. Apart from this, we also travel together as a family and often go out for movies.

Navin on Raseel

I have often said that Raseel brought stability into my life when I most needed it. I used to be this inveterate partygoer without having a very strong sense of responsibility towards the things that really matter in life, such as work and family. But Raseel gave me a new direction. Together, we have built up a good, creatively satisfying business and a great family.

In the beginning, we?d have a lot of squabbles that I now realise stemmed from the differences between where we both were coming from. I have to admit, I was rather spoilt and irresponsible. But we never had serious fights; they were more like angry outbursts from both of us. Nowadays, as we work in the same environment, there are some disagreements on work-related issues and over control at times, but they are part and parcel of any working relationship, aren?t they? When we are stressed out, we tend to take it out on those closest to us and that happens with us all the time, but whenever this happens, one or the other of us tries to make up immediately. We can?t stay angry at each other for very long.

Raseel is a very strong person with very decided views on everything, at the same time; she has a great sense of humour. In fact, I get irritated with her flippancy at times. But I guess everybody has a different way of looking at things. What I really admire about her is that she is the sort of person who if you talk to directly and reasonably, understands your point of view even if it?s different from hers. She is a very loving, warm and considerate person and often surprises me by doing thoughtful little things for me.