Soha Ali Khan reveals when she was born, father Tiger Pataudi assumed it’d be a boy: ‘He was screaming in corridors that we’d make him a fast bowler’ | Bollywood News

Soha Ali Khan comes from a rich lineage — while her mother Sharmila Tagore is an actor, her late father Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, fondly known as Tiger Pataudi, was an ace cricketer. Although he retired before Soha was born in 1976, Soha heard tales about his passion on the field after he passed away years later.
One of the stories is from when she was born, Tiger Pataudi assumed it’d be a boy. Him and Sharmila were already parents to another boy in Saif Ali Khan. “When I was born, I think my father was screaming in the corridors, ‘We’ll make him a fast bowler.’ And then they said, ‘It’s a girl.’ And at that time, there weren’t options for cricketing potential for girls. Today, of course, is a different thing. Perhaps they would’ve invested in me as a bowler then,” recalled Soha.
In the same interview with Showsha, Soha said that she enjoys sports, but is more of an aggressive badminton player than a cricketer. She said that despite not getting trained in cricket, her excellent hand-eye coordination makes her a good fielder. Soha added that everyone in her family wants to be physically fit because they don’t want to lean on somebody else. That’s also her and husband Kunal Kemmu’s idea behind enrolling their daughter Inaaya into sports.
Story continues below this ad

“Often, we want our girls to be good and our boys to be strong. But we want her to be physically strong, such that she doesn’t feel she doesn’t want anyone else to protect her. Even to the point if someone makes you feel unsafe, you should feel, ‘I have the strength to fight back.’ Even though we may be physically the inferior sex, and that’s why become soft targets in so many ways, the idea is to be mentally strong as well,” Soha said. She also said that Inaaya would be “flabbergasted” to know that there’s still a preference for sons.
Having said that, Soha said her parents were never hard on her. “My mother was strict. Neither of them were academically oriented. They cared very much that I do well in school and focus, and wanted me to pursue tertiary education as well. But they were not the kind to get upset about a report card and getting all A’s. I was more upset about it. They were more like, ‘Do what makes you happy. Find things you’re good at.’ They came from artic backgrounds. They didn’t have formal education. My mother didn’t go to university. My father was playing cricket. So it was a very unusual upbringing for me, and there was no pressure to succeed. They were super achievers, but they wore their fame and success very lightly. And there was never any pressure as a child to match up to them, thank god,” added Soha.
Also Read — After Nadaaniyan debacle, Ibrahim Ali Khan gets advice from aunt Soha: ‘Don’t surround yourself with yes-men, work on your craft’
Soha went on to study modern hory at Oxford University and pursued a master’s degree in International Relations at the London School of Economics. She followed in her mother’s footsteps and became an actor in 2004. She’s also an author, having written her memoir The Perils Of Being Moderately Famous.