Sharmila Tagore was one of the top actors of her generation when she got married to cricketer Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi and unlike many actors of her generation, Sharmila continued to work in the movies despite being married and having kids. While many have said that Sharmila could ace at balancing her work and personal life, the veteran actor knew that she needed a mantra to maintain peace at home, and when the time came, she passed on the same advice to her daughter Soha Ali Khan as well.
In a chat with The Hollywood Reporter India, Soha shared that her mother believed that a woman must always take care of a man’s ego for a healthy marriage. Soha is married to actor Kunal Kemmu. “My mother told me that women should take care of the man’s ego, and a man should take care of a woman’s emotions. If you’re able to do that, then you are going to have a long and successful relationship. A lot of people today will feel men also have emotions and women also have egos, but that advice has stood me in good stead. I feel that long-term relationships are the most challenging things, and you need friends there because if you take everything to your partner, you will put too much pressure on the relationship,” she shared.
Actor Neha Dhupia was also a part of the same conversation, and she shared that Soha gave her a similar advice when she married actor Angad Bedi. Neha recalled, “Soha told me that men have really fragile egos, so you should watch what you say. I feel like you have to work on a marriage every single day. You can do all the work, but it is quite a slippery slope, and everything can go south very quickly. Over time, I have learnt to pick my battles and the importance of preserving that friendship with my husband.”
In the same chat, Soha also spoke about her mother not getting enough time with son Saif Ali Khan when he was little, and how it upset the young Saif. “Sometimes, my mother didn’t see my brother for weeks. And then, she would rush home to do bedtime with him and he would be like, ‘I don’t need you. I don’t want you right now’ because he was also upset. So he is fine with the didi and then you are like, ‘What did I rush home for?’ And then you are so stressed about that time that you end up being short with your children, so it’s a lot,” she recalled.
Sharmila and Mansoor got married in 1968, and stayed married until his passing in 2011.
