Saif Ali Khan and Amrita Singh separated when Sara Ali Khan was 9 years old. Thus, Sara grew up with a single mother, however, she has continued to remain extremely close to her father. Now in a recent interview, Sara opened up spending her formative years with her mother and not a traditional household with both parents. Sara was not alone on this podcast, but she was accompanied by her grandmom Sharmila Tagore as Soha Ali Khan interviewed both of them. During this chat, Tagore spoke about how her son Saif has been as a parent. Talking about how parenting has evolved, Sharmila Tagore said that she learned a great deal by watching her children become parents themselves. She added that while she depended heavily on elders in the family while raising her kids but today’s generation often turns to books and friends for guidance. Recalling Saif’s approach to parenting, she shared how he managed to strike a balance between work and responsibility when Sara was young.“Saif has been an excellent parent. I have seen him with you (Sara). Like if they had to go to a premiere in the middle of the night, she went with them but we can see it hasn’t harmed her, and she would come back and do her homework,” Sharmila said.She went on to recall a moment from Ibrahim Ali Khan’s childhood that changed her own outlook. During a Christmas celebration at Pataudi, Sharmila admitted she was trying to decorate the tree “perfectly,” while young Ibrahim was happily placing ornaments wherever he liked. Saif, she remembered, gently intervened.“With Ibrahim, I remember… I think it was Pataudi and they were doing the Christmas tree and I was trying to be perfect and trying to put it in the right way. And Ibrahim was putting it all over the place. So Saif said, ‘Do you mind? It has to be participative’. I also learnt that you don’t have to be perfect but allow the children to grow at their own pace. And he has been really wonderful,” she said. The veteran actress also mentioned about how Saif is now with his younger ones Jeh and Taimur. She said, “Even with Taimur and Jeh, he’s a lot of fun. Even during his accident, he was very real with them.” After divorce with Amrita in 2004, Saif got married to Kareena Kapoor and they have two sons – Taimur and Jeh. Sara, meanwhile, spoke about the lessons she has absorbed from both her parents, adding a dose of humour to the conversation. Laughing, she said, “On a bad day, you don’t want to ask Abba or Amma because they are like, ‘You are like your father’ or ‘You are like your mother’. And I am like, ‘Guys, this is bound to happen, you studied DNA right? Yes, I am like my mom and yes, I am like my father’.”Elaborating further, Sara said she inherited her “eclectic likes” from her father, while her mother taught her the value of being unapologetically herself. From Amrita Singh, she said, she learned how to be “unfiltered” and authentic. “Staying real in a world where it’s difficult to be that way. People are like, ‘Oh you are so bindaas, you are so unfiltered. How are you that way?’ And I think that’s because of mom. I think she is not at all watching her Ps and Qs. I mean she is not a rude person but she is real. In a world where people go out of their way to manicure you, I think we are manicured only on our hands,” Sara added with a laugh.
