Page-Three fixtures and style icons for society glossies, their own favourite spot is Rishikesh, up in the mountains. Both are petite, picture-perfect and unpretentious. With an identical taste in two kinds of music - bhajans and trance. Interestingly, each of them uses the possessive pronoun 'my' when talking about their children. As a couple, he leads and she anchors. And both are discomfited by the sudden attention that the recent 'battle of the wills' has thrust upon them. Manjula Sen keeps an appointment with Avanti and Yash Birla, at the plush Birla House in Mumbai.

Yashovardhan Birla's life could provide the plot for a dramatic movie. Born into a famous business clan, he is an introverted child who at 12 would rather read about the afterlife than Hardy Boys. He is closest to his widowed grandmother, Gopi, who loves narrating stories from mythology and religious tracts. He grows up in the sprawling Birla House, where Mahatma Gandhi stayed, Vallabhai Patel died and leaders of the Freedom Movement strategised. He adores older sister, Sujata. Their parents are loving, sociable and collectors of art. Strict vegetarians all, but mother Sunanda encourages her son, unsuccessfully, to experiment with eggs and chicken as a survival tool for the future globetrotter. After-school hours are spent at father Ashok's office, learning accounts and ledgers. In college, he falls in love with a pretty middle-class girl, informs his parents and is packed off to America to study, cool down and gain some international exposure. His mother personally sets up his North Carolina apartment and his sister visits him. A year later, he wakes up to the news of the death of his parents and sister in a plane crash in Bangalore. At 23, he finds himself at the helm of his father's many companies. A worried aunt, concerned for his emotional well-being, visits his sweetheart's parents and Yash Birla and Avanti Natu are married a year later. After two sons, when a daughter is born, Yash Birla finally finds peace.

The above outline however is ambiguous to the characters that people the story. The past and future are so strongly woven to the present that the denouement remains unscripted. To the visitor at Birla House, there are evident imprints of the old-style Marwari household and extended family. Members are pegged to initials or relationships. 'Chhoti Ma' and 'Badi Ma', 'Mr GD' or 'Mrs MP' dot the conversation. There is a household munim. Family retainers refer to 'Yash babu' and serve tea in chiselled cups covered with little beaded nets instantly familiar to housewives in Kolkata.

The wall alongside the staircase leading up to the family living room, is replete with photographic landmarks of the Freedom Movement, family portraits and religious art. Yash casually walks through the adjoining dining area and takes discreet stock of his visitor. Then enters the large, painting-lined sitting room and settles into the interview, occasionally joined by his four-year-old daughter Shloka who is her father's heartbeat. Wife, Avanti, stops by to say hello. The next day, she will meet in the smaller downstairs sitting room, curling up on a chair, her face playing back her thoughts. "The people who were my world till I was 23 are no longer around. I constantly relive my past like a movie. Although my grandmother had the biggest influence on me, I miss my mother the most today. I believe in an existence after death and I wait for the time when I will actually meet my mother in some form," says Yash. Childhood, he recalls, was a happy time, although his parents wished he were outgoing like them. "I could stay for days in the house. My spiritual interests made my mother a little anxious. She would worry that I would not marry or I would lack ambition. Looking back, I feel, spirituality was preparing me for what was to come."

Cousin, Divya Mohta, clothes and jewellery designer, remembers him as "an extremely sensitive and caring child, always full of laughter, fun and joy." They spent much of their childhood together at their grandmother's home in Nashik. "As children, we would all get into skirmishes but he was the one who would always stand up and protect the underdog."

Growing up, Yash often felt out of place among his peers. "I am sure they thought I did not fit in either." In college, his rigid views even alarmed his future wife. Avanti recalls, "We started seeing each other only when we were 20 but we were practically growing up together from our teens. I used to find him very uptight. I'd laugh at him in the beginning. He was quick to lecture people on non-vegetarianism, drinking and smoking. Later, I started respecting him for his views."

The couple, both in their mid-thirties, first met when she was 16. Avanti attended Jai Hind College, in Mumbai and Yash was in neighbouring Sydenham. They soon found themselves in a tight-knit group of friends, from various backgrounds. "Yash never made us feel he was different," recalls Avanti. His simplicity appealed to her. Those were the days when an embarrassed Yash would park his 'really big car' that his mother insisted he take, near Churchgate Station and walk to college and Avanti would insist on splitting the bill, down to the last paisa, in restaurants or road stalls. "We were not very alike when we were young but I think opposites attract. I just appreciated her values. I never liked anybody from a very affluent background or society girls. She was not any of that. And that is what attracted me. She was also very pretty (laughs), all my friends used to fancy her."

Yash would visit Avanti at home in suburban Khar but she visited him rarely. She felt self-conscious. "I met his grandmother and a couple of times I met his parents. They were very nice. Towards the end, when he was leaving for the US, there was a slight coldness, for Yash told them about us. But his sister, Sujata, was very supportive throughout." His parents knew how important a role a wife played in the business community, explains Yash. "I said I will go to the US but, when I return, I will still want to marry her, with your blessing. Even in that, I was very Indian in my thought. If I dated somebody, I would marry that person.I enjoy a traditional relationship. I am basically quite a romantic person. I like my wife to be there, at all times, when I am at home."

The baby in her family, Avanti is the daughter of a pilot and a housewife, "who you could bully in one second!" She completed her MA in Psychology, after marriage. She loved to paint, rescue stray animals and chase pigeon shooters out of her locality but was nervous about a relationship with Yash. "I said it would never work." However, after his return to India, his aunt, Mrs MP (Priyamvada Birla) or 'Badi Ma', took over. "We got along like a house on fire. Her acceptance of me opened the gates to everyone else. She just put her hand on my head. She was very fun loving, very adventurous," says Avanti. While the couple will not comment on the current controversy surrounding Mrs MP Birla's will, which sidelined them for an outsider, Yash says, "my aunt was spiritually inclined too. We made many pilgrimages together to unexplored places in the Himalayas."

Avanti remembers the difficult early years of their marriage. "Yash could not come to terms with what he had lost. I wanted to blank that whole period out. He was a child. I was immature. I did not know how to handle him or the situation. But our whole college group took over and circled him." Meanwhile, on the home front, the clan stepped in. "A family member came from Kolkata to literally train me on how to wear a sari, jewellery, sit, conduct myself with servants, run the kitchen: this is the way we do it. It was never imposed on me, though. Our housekeeper, Leelaben, who had been here for 40 years, was a great help too.

"This is a very tight-knit family, though the businesses are separate," adds Avanti. "Take all the negative press recently. They hate all that because they have never really exposed themselves to the public before. All the older lot, actually, they are great - that mould will never be made again. They accepted me with so much love that the only way to repay them is by keeping in touch." Yash reflects on that period and muses, "I don't think time is a healer. The only difference after 15 years is that the intensity has turned from sorrow to serenity. But, at that time, I went into a depression and did not even realise it."

There was also the business side of it. His father had sacked four out of his five senior managers and was making strategic changes in business, when he died. "There was no team to count on. For one or two months, my uncle, Aditya Birla, helped me a lot. Then my aunt, Mrs MP Birla, loaned her advisors for five-six years, till I learnt to take responsibility." He believes that the weight of the name brings along "a certain anxiousness, about meeting expectations raised by generations of hard work. But, look at my cousin Kumar Mangalam. He has done so well."

One of the best things they could have done to ease Yash's pain, says Avanti, was to start a family straightaway. It sidetracked his grief. Nirvaan was born in 1991 and Vedantvardhan in 1994. It was only when Shloka was born, four and a half years ago, that the emptiness was finally filled. In his daughter, he sees a lot of his mother and sister. "I don't really get between this relationship. He is both mother and father to her. I keep back a little, completely give them their space," says Avanti wisely.

Yash reflects that although his sons might feel that he is a little partial towards their sister, he loves his children equally. "It's just that I missed having a female blood relation in my life. I was desperate for a daughter. I prayed, fasted and visited holy places. Finally, when she was born, I felt fulfilled. Now, I don't have many desires." Father and daughter constantly check in on each other. He will call her to the office if he has not seen her the whole day, will party only after his daughter is asleep and is wont to weep when he misses her, as he did the day after he left her at base camp while trekking in the Himalayas.

Like many parents, they worry about their children growing up "in a city where everything is a matter of excess," says Avanti. They worry about westernisation and new Indian destinations have become part of winter travel plans, before meeting up with cousins in Rishikesh for New Year. "My children have been on more pilgrimages than me when I was their age," says Yash. "The Birla children don't have other society children as friends. Rather, school friends they make on their own," says Avanti, adding that her sons are very careful spenders who have to give a hisaab to Yash even for their weekly bhel.

With homes in Alibag, Nashik, Rishikesh and Mumbai, the couple's favourite destination is Rishikesh, for its peace and spiritual aura. On the more colourful side, all their shopping is done in London. Avanti may want to dine out in Milan but there is no wasting time for Yash when he goes on a shopping spree. "If I overspend, I try to compromise by staying in a double room instead of a suite." He adds, "I am over-traditional and backward about how I conduct myself. But, the way I dress is very non-Marwari." His fashion statements often cause jaws to drop and eyebrows to rise. Hers too. "We fight over his too flamboyant dressing. The children find his sleeveless, orange T-shirt bewildering," laughs Avanti. (Shloka points to her dad's tummy. A huge scar from a gall bladder surgery, has been veiled with a murli (flute) tattoo, one of several religious symbols adorning the torso.) Yash has his own views on all this: "The body is a garment and clothes are the garment on the garment. If I change my clothes, my personality does not change."

He is irked by the media emphasis on his clothes. "The core of my personality is my spirituality. My ambition in life is to get closer to the Divine. After that come my daughter, my children, wife, then work and health, yoga and fitness. I like to look the best I can. And then my hobbies, home interiors and clothes. Clothes are sixth in my priority list!" he exclaims. "But, for the media, I am my clothes and my so-called partying character."

Philosophically, he shrugs off the spotlight. Avanti is not as sanguine. "I don't like it if someone misconstrues something about him," she says protectively. "I don't like being a public figure. It bothers me that people have on opinion of me without knowing who I really am. I can't be thick-skinned. Now, with a TV camera at every party, the whole of India sees it. It's like a noose around your neck." She remembers 'Mrs MP's' words: "Your private life is your private life. You must expose it only when you want it exposed."

This Birla bahu may well be the only one who can believably describe herself as a 'happy dresser'. "I love colour. I can't stand staid beiges or creams. I am totally myself. Most times, Yash does not like what I wear but, he has to learn to live with it. He wants me dolled up the whole day with make-up, big earrings, red nail polish and blow-dried hair. I can't do that (laughing helplessly). After 14 years, he still hasn't realised it." She has her own salon, RAIH and the staff knows they have one hour flat to finish everything. So, what made her go blonde? She chuckles, "I didn't decide I wanted to be blonde. Yash decided I wanted to be blonde, after we were married. And I have just stuck with that hair colour."

Their society outings are well documented but her best friends are old friends. "I am not so in tune with society people. I have some good friends among them but I feel like an observer sometimes," she says. Her oldest friend dates back from when she was six and her closest friend is Seema from college, who is in Los Angeles now. She dreams of going on holiday with her girlfriends but knows Yash wouldn't like it. She admits that Yash used to be maddeningly possessive. "I could not bear it before but now he has opened up a little." He admits to being a conservative husband. "I enjoy a traditional relationship. I am basically quite a romantic person. I like my wife to be there, at all times, when I am at home." He admires her creative ideas and helped her to conceptualise Yantra, a furniture store, as well as her salon. "Both are doing very well. But, I am not a numbers person," confesses Avanti. "Finance, for me, is still a zero. I just can't do it."

What do they bring to each other's lives? Yash replies that the answer could go on for ages. "She taught me to be less judgemental, to be more respectful of elders and that duty is not a burden. She does this so beautifully that I follow too. She maintains friendships and is very open-hearted. I thoroughly respect her for that." She picks the gift of spirituality that he has brought into her life. "Today, I have found this beautiful thing within me. I feel more complete than I ever was. And my guruji has really helped me with this."

Yash is aghast that his wife is looking for one rebirth, rather than ultimate nirvana but she grins and says she wants to be reborn once, as a male sanyasi so that, "I can do what I want, lie on the road, visit temples, live in the Himalayas. Be free, completely."

Ask each what they like about themselves and the answers are an instant impress of who they are. "I have not been affected by what I have married into. I still feel I am the same person who was living with my parents. Partly thanks to Yash for he is so 'normal'. I have maintained my sense of honour that I had before," says Avanti. He cherishes his easy tears. "I am emotional. It's human and I like it."

Yash Birla is at the stage where he finds that the answers to some of life's puzzles lie within the seeker. And that waiting is a part of the process. Part of him believes he has a deeper calling, yet his business aspirations are beginning to mount. He is mesmerised by Indian culture and wants to open a Sanskrit school but has not had the time to learn Sanskrit, yet. In the midst of an opulent home surrounded by skyscrapers, he yearns for the blue skies and clean air of the Himalayas and then philosophises that this is where he is meant to be.

An impression forms, that it is the women in this family who have a dormant ability to spring surprises. Surprisingly, Yash takes considerably less time, in doing so. Impressions of a torn, a fragmented and untiring seeker of the divine, are jolted into droll relief, by his unexpected response when asked about the beaded pendant against his throat. "It's a fart!" he grins and then explains that it's a talisman. Irreverent and irrepressible, Yash Birla has learnt, more so than many, that life is a theatre of the sublime and the spirited.