The perks and perils of being Soha

Despite her illustrious lineage, Soha Ali Khan never grew up with a sense of entitlement. To her, Mansoor Ali Khan was the coolest father and Sharmila Tagore, a regular mom who attended her PTMs. Umang Aggarwal talks to the actor-turned-author about her new book, her normal childhood, her plans for daughter Inaaya, and more

In her first book, The Perils of Being Moderately Famous, author-actor Soha Ali Khan gives the readers a sense of what it must be like to be her. She was a kid who didn’t fully know just how famous her parents were; she was busy enjoying her status as the youngest kid in the family. Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi or the Tiger and Sharmila Tagore or Bollywood’s very own Pushpa did not let her realise that she had big shoes to fill. They wanted her to be her own person.

“When I was young, my father was just my father, my mother was just my mother. There was no sense of how famous they were, or what all they had achieved. We lived in Delhi, my mother was a part of the PTA. We watched a lot of English movies growing up... that was my father’s taste in cinema. It was only when I joined the film industry that I saw a lot of Amma’s Hindi and Bengali films, and I understood her contribution to cinema — the films that she had done with Satyajit Ray, the fact that they had international acclaim. So, that’s when I realised exactly how famous my mother was. And so, in terms of Pataudi and Bhopal, I think being a student of history and growing up like that, I knew that we belonged to a family that had a past... that had some kind of lineage, so that was something I was aware of. But because we were not really comparing it to anyone, we didn’t really know where we stood in relation to everyone else. So, for me, it was quite normal,” Soha explains.

Soha’s book is a collection of personal essays. The first one is dedicated to her father and the second, her mother. She talks about lessons he taught her by just being himself — live and let live, never complain about “a bit of bad luck”, make others feel comfortable even through your own discomfort, and speak less. The last one, she says, she never really followed. As far as Sharmila is concerned, Soha always found her setting an example for her. And still, she always had time to figure out what new mischief the kids were up to or to cover her chicken poxed self up and stealthily and carefully drop the youngest daughter to school because she just wouldn’t go otherwise.

Of course, it took Soha even more time to explain how she was related to a poet, no less reputed than Rabindranath Tagore! For the purpose of the book, she has drawn up a Tagore family chart and summed up her relationship with him by saying that eventually, after having tried very hard to wrap her head around the names of an army of extended relatives, she just realised that Tagore was her great grand uncle. She honestly shares that she did not know that Tagore was actually the anglicised version of Thakur. She found that out only when she couldn’t understand why a journalist in Kolkata kept referring to her mother as Sharmila Thakur, and Soha, inviting embarrassment, decided to ‘correct’ her!

At her Vasant Vihar residence, struggling with cold, she told us, “In terms of Tagore, I learnt more every time we went to Kolkata. When I studied history at school and read about the freedom movement, I understood the contribution of Bengal... that’s when I think I learnt more about Tagore. From within the family and even from outside, there was never really an expectation to excel. Of course, when you are the son or daughter of an actor or cricketer, people expect you to be in the same professions. And they are very surprised if you choose to do something else with your life. Even Ibrahim — my brother’s son — was asked at a cricket match we went to, ‘Are you going to be a cricketer or an actor?’ It’s almost as if there is no third option! So, I think from that perspective, I am glad that at least from within the family, there was no pressure to pick either profession or even to excel in anything. They just always said, ‘Be the best you can be; participate, enjoy yourself, and be happy’.”

She adds, “I have read Tagore’s literature only in translation, not in the original Bangla script. Beyond Gitanjali, there are a lot of his short stories that I really liked. Many have been adapted into films that I have enjoyed watching.”

Soha was also approached for Anurag Basu’s TV adaptation of Tagore’s short stories. She says, “Since this was a few years ago, one was very apprehensive of doing anything that was not a feature film. So, I do remember that somebody had reached out to check (if I would want to be a part of the show). But at that point, it was like ‘oh, it’s not a feature film’. But now people are becoming more accepting of that kind of content.”

Soha shares in the book that while growing up she never really had the sense that they were flush with wealth. Later, she also shared that people get a little shocked when she calls a 2BHK small. After she became an actor, some people might have been hard on Soha and called her a rich spoilt girl who got everything too easy or commented that her fame or money wasn’t her own, but at least the school she attended shielded her from that kind of criticism for some time. She says, “I went to a school where there were people far richer than us. It was a small international school called The British School in Chanakyapuri. There were people from all over the world and you really got to know the individual. There was never the sense that ‘Oh! She is Sharmila Tagore’s daughter’. We did go to each other’s house but all parents were just uncle and aunty.”

In the book, she uses an analogy from the dating world to share that while it is nice to have the comfort of the family money, which is like the guy who would ask you out to prom if the one you really want to go out with doesn’t, she has always wanted to, and also managed to go out with the more desirable guy — earned and used her own money. 

With so much of family history that was in the public eye, was there ever a part of the lineage that she did not enjoy? She says, “Instead of liking or not liking, I just accept it that this is who I am and this is the family I belong to. I thought it was romantic to belong to a family that had a royal ancestry. I was very proud of the fact that we were related to Rabindranath Tagore and there was a literary heritage there. I thought my father was the coolest person ever, so to be his daughter, and his youngest daughter at that, was precious to me.”

While deciding to be her own person, Soha had chosen to go to Balliol College, Oxford, and then became an investment banker. When she was on her way to college, through her parents, she had been supposedly approached by Salman Khan for a movie. At that point, she had thought that the very idea of not going to Oxford to do a 90s’ Bollywood movie was stupid. So, she went off to college, struggled with making friends, found herself surprised at how non-geeky the new geeks were, managed to get her own picture on the college wall of fame — her father had had his on for being an excellent cricketer. This was also where Soha had her first few romantic relationships, about which her mother had very prudently told her she didn’t have to be too worried about. It was only after Soha had done all that, and become a well-paid investment banker with a future in London that a call from Amol Palekar for Paheli — a movie she finally did not end up doing — made her quit her job, pack her bags and work towards doing something she would enjoy. She decided to be an actor, and for at least a while, she did not even tell her parents.

An actor should very quickly develop thick skin if they want to survive, Soha said at the launch event of her book. So, after her first few movies, she did. “A review will always be one person’s opinion, and you can’t please everyone. And some films have been good, and some films have been less good. Some performances have been good, and some performances have been mediocre. I don’t think that anybody was being particularly harder on me. Comparisons are often made if you belong to a family of actors. And if those people have done better than you, or have far greater achievements than you, then I think in the public eye, you fall short. And that comes through. But eventually, people did realise that I am my own person and I am doing my own thing. And I think they judged me on the basis of my own performance,” she says.

Were actors scared of her when she first started acting? “I don’t think actors were ever scared of me. But I think there was an awareness because everyone knows everyone. There was an awareness because they knew my brother, my mother, or their siblings did. So, you just think about it very carefully before you become very close to anyone because it would affect more than just your relationship. So, it took time to make friends.”

Were there friends of hers who took a shine to her brother or friends of his who liked her? She says, “There have been lots of my friends who have silently appreciated my brother, from the wings. But since he is older and has been in relationships, marriages for most of the time that I have known him, I don’t think anybody would think of hitting on him. And for him, I think the fact that I am his youngest sister will certainly be something that they would think about before hitting on me. So, I have to say that it has never happened.”

And how does she deal with it when it is implied that her fame might not be her own? “Maybe if you have the right connections, it would help in opening of certain doors. But then if you don’t deliver, if you don’t have what it takes, the doors are also shut very quickly. As a star child, what you are bringing to the table is a certain level of interest from the audience because they are interested in watching Sharmila Tagore’s daughter or son on screen. But then, you have to be able to hold that interest and take it beyond that,” says Soha.

And that goes for her book, too, since many assume that celebrity books are ghostwritten. “Given the fact that I am fully confident that I have written every single word, I have never thought about having to defend it. And given the tone of the book, people tell me when they read it that they feel like they are having a conversation with me. The book is actually how I speak, so I don’t think anybody who knows me would ever say that it was ghostwritten,” she says.

She is very upfront in her book about how female actors in their 40s have practically no roles in Bollywood. But can someone with her looks, skill, and connections really not change that? She says, “It’s not like I have a lot of control over things. I have to be offered the right script. I am not the actor-producer-director in one. Now, a lot of leading actors are becoming producers because they understand the value of owning content and having control. But at this stage, one is just looking for good roles, and a lot of it will have to happen when a group of people — actors, producers, viewers — decide to do it.”

Many reviewers have called Soha’s humour in the book self-deprecating, but is it really? She says, “Self-deprecating is a term that is used with a lot of ease. When you are thinking about humour, I think anyone who is trying to make light of the situation or light of themselves, it comes across as self-deprecating. But I think more than just being hard on myself or laughing at myself, it is about me just saying that this is who I am, I quite enjoy who I am, and I accept and embrace who I am. And to be able to therefore talk about how things are in a matter-of-fact way, also to be able to laugh at it comes from a position of security and confidence. It’s not, ‘Oh, let me laugh at myself before someone else does’. Instead of that it’s about not limiting your life to just one aspect.”

Now, as a new mother, what plans does she have? “I am not a big planner because I feel that whatever plans you make, life is pretty quick to unplan them for you. But yes, I would just want Inaaya to be her own person, I would want her to enjoy what she does, I would want her to be happy. I would like for her to be able to communicate with me. I want to be her guide, I don’t want to be her best friend. Like my mother did, I would encourage her to play sports and develop some interest in extra-curricular activities. I don’t want her to get bored. I remember my mother would say, ‘Never say you are bored, because there is so much that you can do constructively with your own time.’ I remember that saying I am bored was as bad as using bad language in my house. If I ever said I was bored, my mother would look at me and say, ‘Why? You can write a letter, you can draw something, you can go for a walk, there are so many things you can do.’ So, that’s something I would want to follow, too. Children should find ways to entertain themselves in constructive ways.”

On her current status as an actor nearing her 40s, she says, “The film industry puts you in a different category of actors then. And then with all the commercials, you start getting offers to endorse baby products because people can just relate to that easily.” Between changing nappies and weighing endorsement offers, Soha says that apart from wanting to find good work, the next book she can think of is The Perils of Parenting because that’s where her whole day goes.