'I Said, 'I'm Fine. I'm Not Going To Die'

Why did eight-year-old Taimur go with his father Saif Ali Khan to the hospital in the dead of night after the horrific knife attack at their home?

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'He had a knife in each hand.' 'And something just kind of took over and I just grabbed him.'

Many thoughts were running through the actor’s head and one of them was this -- if ‘God forbid’ something were to happen to him, he would like his son to be around.

“He (Taimur) was absolutely composed. He was fine. He said, ‘I’m coming with you.’ I was getting a lot of comfort just from looking at him at that time. And I didn’t want to go alone,” Saif told The Times of India newspaper, his first interview since the January 16 attack.

‘My wife sent him knowing what he would do for me. Maybe it wasn’t... at the moment, it was the right thing to do. I felt good about it. And I also thought, if God forbid, something happens, I’d like for him to be there. And he wanted to be there also.’;

It was a very filmi scene, recalled the actor, who was stabbed multiple times and was taken to hospital in an autorickshaw with a portion of the knife still lodged in his spine.

In his detailed recap of the intruder attack and its aftermath, the star said Taimur and his house help Hari rushed him to the hospital.

He also spoke of how fortunate he was to escape paralysis and that he will never keep a weapon at home, notwithstanding the family’s trauma.

The 54-year-old star underwent a six-hour emergency surgery after the attack at his 12th-floor apartment in Mumbai’s Bandra suburb last month.

Kareena, he said, was making calls frantically but nobody was up.

‘And we looked at each other, and I said, “I’m fine. I’m not going to die.” And Taimur also asked me -- “Are you going to die?” I said, “No”,’ Saif said.

Responding to naysayers asking why there was no driver at their home, Saif said, ‘Nobody stays here all night. Everyone has a home to go to.’

He also said there was no time to call the driver.