Sharmila Tagore recalls horrible comments after Taimur was born: ‘Would be better if Kareena Kapoor had Zika’

Zika is a disease caused by the Zika virus that is spread through mosquito bites. Actor Kareena Kapoor married Sharmila’s son-actor Saif Ali Khan in 2012. The couple welcomed their firstborn, son Taimur Ali Khan on December 20, 2016. A section of the people had criticised the couple for naming their son Taimur.

Speaking with Mojo Story, Sharmila reacted to a statement that when a person is in the public eye, people can be intrusive. Sharmila said, “Can you really please everybody? So why even try? Because if you go according to other people’s prescriptions then your own focus, your own desires get lost and you can’t really win so you lose anyway so why even go that way? You might as well please yourself.”

Recalling her reaction when a section of the people spoke against Taimur’s name, Sharmila said, “Anger is not the emotion here. You just again observe you take note of it. Actually, I don’t read, I am not on social media. But I read one post which said, ‘It would have been better if Kareena had Zika and Taimur was never born’. I said how can somebody actually think like that? How is it possible for somebody to even wish a one-day-old baby so much harm? Where does it come from? I don’t feel afraid myself but I just wonder, what is this world? And who are these people? Or are they just repeating what is being said? Are they real?”

In 2017, Saif told The Times of India that he had reconsidered changing Taimur’s name. “I haven’t told anyone about this — I thought for a second about changing his name. For a couple of weeks. And Kareena was a little against it, and she said, ‘People respect you for your opinion and you can’t’… So I said, yeah, but it’s not about people.”

He had also added, “I don’t want him to get unpopular. And I still might, maybe when he’s one or two, I might change his name in a while, it’s still sinking in, what to do. Someone in my PR agreed with me, and we drafted a small letter. And when I read it, it was so pathetic, that I cancelled the idea.”