Voice of a legacy

On Women’s Day, Sharmila Tagore, Soha Ali Khan, and Sara Ali Khan talk to S Ramachandran about rewriting the rules for women

- SOHA ALI KHAN

SOHA ALI KHAN

When I look at the women in my family—and the woman I see in the mirror—I dont see a single, neat definition of what we're supposed to be.

Instead, I see a collection of very different, often clashing ways of being independent. I was born into a royal legacy and a cinematic history, but I live my life in a noisy, digital world. For a long time, I struggled to figure out how to bridge those two realities. But lately, especially through the raw conversations on my podcast All About Her, I've realised that being a modern woman isn't about picking one identity. It’s about having the guts to own all of them.

My perspective on self-acceptance started with my mother, Sharmila Tagore. She has always been a ‘liberal’ but incredibly practical guide. Her advice was never about abstract ideals; it was grounded in how the world actually works. She once told me that in a successful marriage, a woman should mind a man’s ego while a man should care for a woman's emotions. On the surface, that might sound like an old-school compromise, but she was actually teaching me about emotional intelligence—how to navigate a relationship without losing your core self.

Even when we hit friction—like her initial skepticism about my live-in relationship with Kunal (Kemmu) —she never tried to shut me down. She taught me to value natural beauty and, more importantly, the quiet confidence of being okay in my own skin. Because of her, I dontt feel the need to hide behind filters, whether they're digital or metaphorical.

That foundation was put to the test when I became a mother. I'll be honest: I became completely ‘obsessed’ with Inaaya. For a while, I vanished into her. My identity as an actor, a writer, and an individual felt like it was playing second fiddle to just being ‘Inaaya’s mother’. It took a real, conscious jolt to realize that by losing my own fire, I wasnt actually helping her.