Saif Ali Khan rarely speaks about his father. Recently he opened up on this private topic.
Whenever he misses his father Saif finds himself drawn to old articles and videos on his father. “I find myself reading or watching things about Tiger from time to time when I miss him . When I was younger you could pick up any book on cricket and flip to the index and find where the two Pataudis, my father and his father , are featured ; and I would be very proud . He achieved some incredible feats with one eye( or two eyes for that matter !) .”
Speaking on what his father was like in person, Saif recalls, “As a person he was cool under fire ,very calm at all times. He told the funniest stories and his quiet support would mean the world to us , his children , as it did to his teammates.”
Wondering what it would have been like to have the Legend around on the cricket field, Saif says, “I think if he had played today, the media would have loved him and that quiet but stellar demeanour of his , that unique open batting stance, with the bat lifting unorthodoxly towards the gully but magically straightening at the last moment before contacting the ball. And that hat he wore rakishly angled across his bad eye . No one in the history of the sport has ever come back from that kind of accident and got hundreds against England and Australia . It’s the greatest sporting comeback in the history of the game .”
Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi’s legacy is timeless for Saif. “ His legacy to us , his family , is always with us : a sense of honour and poise ; style and dignity with all things. His had an incredible life I think : from the jungles and palaces of Bhopal to the rarefied atmosphere of Winchester and Oxford , to the great cricket grounds all over the world to his home in Delhi where he would lounge in his kurta lungi , reading and watching birds and squirrels in the garden through his window “