Actor Kareena Kapoor has opened up about the controversy around the name of her elder son Taimur Ali Khan. MissMalini Showbiz posted a video on Instagram in which the actor shared how the row affected her. She also added that her husband-actor Saif Ali Khan “was very relaxed and calm about it”. She also recalled her grandfather Raj Kapoor’s advice on how to react when people talk about celebrities. (Also Read | When Saif Ali Khan considered renaming Taimur: ‘We drafted a pathetic letter, Kareena was against it’)

Kareena recalls Raj Kapoor’s advice

Kareena said that he had told her that if people are “talking about you, good or bad, they are talking about you, otherwise why would they talk”. Raj Kapoor had added that that she has to take it in her stride “if you want to be a superstar otherwise this place isn’t for you”. He advised her to have “patthar ka dil (be strong)”.

Kareena talks about row around Taimur’s name

Kareena said, “Of course, it affected me that people were talking about his name. He probably doesn’t even know that there was a whole drama and now suddenly everybody if like, ‘Ok whatever’. But he also got a lot of love for the fact that people were so interested in him. I was like, ‘But why? Because you don’t even know him, he is so small’. So I feel that now he will slowly understand and is understanding the whole culture of the fact that people follow him or he is being clicked.”

Kareena shares what Saif had told her

She added, “But I have to obviously keep reminding him that, ‘It’s important that you do something, your parents have done something.’ So he has figured it out slowly and I took that in my stride. In fact, Saif was very relaxed and calm also about it. He was like, ‘We need to be calm and we need to be sure.’ So I’m happy we had each other to discuss that. That’s also the reason why I share a lot on Instagram but yet I don’t share a lot on Instagram. I’m happy to be accessible to my fans for what they need to see. But there’s also a side because of everything I’ve been through I’m always gonna be a little away.”

Row around Taimur’s name

Taimur was born in Dcember 2016 and when his parents decided his name there was an uproar. The decision attracted much controversy, with Saif even suggesting at one point that he was open to renaming the boy. Kareena had a few years ago said that a prominent film industry personality rudely told her that she’d made a mistake by naming her child Taimur. In 2017, Saif told Mumbai Mirror that he was aware of why people were upset. Many drew a connection to the Turkish invader Timur. Saif and Kareena have two sons–Tamir and Jehangir Ali Khan (Jeh), born in 2021.