Soha Ali Khan in town on Monday. Picture by Aranya Sen

Jab they met, she was among the very few who knew. But mum was the word from Soha Ali Khan on the much-talked-about affair between Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor, even 12 days after her brother had spilled the beans.

The actress, who was in town on Monday to launch a tech store, was categorical when quizzed about the hottest couple in tinsel town. “No, don’t ask me about all that.... I don’t know Kareena at all,” she shrugged, looking picture perfect in a basic white halter-neck top teamed with a Prussian blue ankle-length skirt embellished with embroidery.

But the charming daughter of Tiger Pataudi and Sharmila Tagore did ease up when talk turned to her brother’s latest girlfriend’s latest release, Jab We Met. “I have seen the film and I think she (Kareena) is great in it,” she smiled.

What Soha left unsaid but the paying public has said loud and clear is that the Shahid Kapoor-Kareena Kapoor partnership rocks. The screen chemistry of the former lovers is the highlight of the Imtiaz Ali movie that has stormed the box office in its first weekend. In Calcutta, the rom com featuring Shahid and Kareena as “two wandering souls” finding love has registered “almost 100 per cent occupancy” at the two INOX plexes since its Friday release.

“Bebo and Shahid look better together, hands down, on or off screen,” declared second-year mass communication student Farah Gherda. “I adore Saif Ali Khan as an actor, but the idea of him together with Kareena just does not click.”

Saif’s surprise revelation — of him and Kareena being “together” — at the Lakme Fashion Week in Mumbai days before Jab We Met was to hit the halls has helped rather than harmed the film’s fate, feels the trade. “There must have been a curiosity factor at work, particularly amongst the young, about the Shahid-Kareena split, but it’s finally the good content that has worked for the film,” said Vikas Syal, general manager of INOX (Forum).

Director Imtiaz Ali was confident that the Saif effect was not unsafe for his film. “Audiences today are smart enough to understand whether a film is worth watching,” he had said.

Soha sure proved smart enough.