Actor Saif Ali Khan getting stabbed by an intruder in January this year had the nation shocked. How could a person break through security, enter a star’s home, walk into the bedroom of his child, and stab the actor as he tried to protect his son? That was the question on everyone’s mind. The incident deeply shook the Kapoor family, and now, for the first time, Kareena Kapoor Khan has opened up about the episode, admitting that she hasn’t quite processed it yet and how it impacted not only her and Saif, but also Jeh and Taimur.
‘It was very difficult to sleep after Saif’s attack’
During an interview with Barkha Dutt on Mojo Story, Kareena recalled the night the intruder entered their Mumbai home and how the experience left her anxious for a long time. She said, “I am still kind of struggling with what it does to see someone there in your child’s room. In Mumbai, you never really hear about such incidents. It is very common in the US. In Mumbai, we have never really heard about someone walking in and attacking your husband. We have still not come to terms 100 per cent. At least I haven’t. I was very anxious for the first couple of months. It was very difficult to sleep and get back to the person with that kind of normalcy.”
The Jab We Met star compared the incident to death and shared that while the memory fades over time, she hasn’t forgotten that fateful night. “With time, I realised that the memory fades more and more. It’s there in your heart. It is like death. When you lose someone, you never really get over it. That’s what I have always perceived – that you never really get over that but the memory fades day by day,” she said.
‘Don’t want to live in fear for my children’
Kareena admitted that she had to shake herself up and resist the anxiety she suffered after the incident, for the sake of her sons — Taimur Ali Khan and Jeh Ali Khan. She revealed that she had to stay strong so she wouldn’t project that fear onto her children. She said, “But I don’t want to live in that fear for my children because that’s also wrong to put that stress onto them. So, it’s been a tough journey to manoeuvre from fear and anxiety to balancing the fact that I am a mother and I am also a wife. It was a combination of so much understanding that this is what I have to kind of deal with. I am just happy and thank God that we are safe. We are stronger as a unit.”
‘Jeh said my father is Batman, Iron Man’
Kareena acknowledged that the incident, in a single moment, stripped her sons of their sheltered lives and introduced them to a harsh reality. She shared how her younger son Jeh even sees Saif as a superhero for confronting the attacker despite being stabbed. “Hope my sons grow up with resilience because they have seen their father getting stabbed. My younger one (Jeh) still says, ‘My father is Batman and Iron Man, he can take on anyone.’”
Kareena also expressed hope that the traumatic incident will ultimately make her sons stronger and more resilient. “Yes, they have seen blood and everything but I am hoping that that experience will make them different kind of men. They have been so sheltered and then they have seen this, so somehow I feel that this experience has brought them out of that sheltered life and a little more into reality that this can happen. Of course, they shouldn’t have seen this at 4 and 8 years old, but I have to look at something out of it.”
‘No family should see what we saw’
When asked if she has changed as a person after the attack on Saif, Kareena responded, “It has shaken me to the core but I can’t live in that fear. Also we Punjabis say, ‘Bala tal gai (the calamity was averted)’ and that’s what I am believing in. I don’t think any family should see what we saw. It has been an uphill task.”
