Saif Ali Khan

Khan was born on 16 August 1970 in New Delhi, India to Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, a former captain of the Indian national cricket team, and his wife Sharmila Tagore, a film actress. Khan's father, who was the son of the last ruling Nawab of the princely state of Pataudi during the British Raj, received a privy purse from the Government of India under terms worked out in the Political integration of India, and was allowed to use the title Nawab of Pataudi until 1971 when the title was abolished. Following Mansur Ali Khan's death in 2011, a symbolic pagri ceremony was held in the village of Pataudi, Haryana to "crown" Khan as the "tenth Nawab of Pataudi", which Khan attended to please the sentiments of the villagers, who wanted him to continue a family tradition. Khan has two younger sisters, jewelry designer Saba Ali Khan and actress Soha Ali Khan. He is the paternal grandson of Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi, who played for the Indian cricket team in England in 1946, and Sajida Sultan, the Nawab Begum of Bhopal. Hamidullah Khan, the last ruling Nawab of Bhopal was his great-grandfather, and the cricketer Saad Bin Jung is his first cousin. He is also the great-grandnephew of Abida Sultan. Saif Ali Khan great-grandson of Major General Sher Ali Khan Pataudi who served as the Chief of General Staff of the Pakistan Army, and the grandnephew of Shahryar Khan, Chairman Pakistan Cricket Board and Ashiq Hussain Qureshi, Pakistani test Cricketer. Notably, Saif's paternal uncle Major-General Isfandiyar Ali Khan Pataudi (son of Sher Ali Khan Pataudi), has served as the Deputy Director General of Pakistan's ISI. Speaking about his childhood, Khan said that he was exposed to a "life beyond movies", and his mother described him as someone who was "not an easy child [...] He was impulsive [and] spontaneous." Saif grew up a Muslim. As a child, he recalls fond memories of watching his father playing cricket in the garden and has emphasized that his father's education and background had a lasting impression on how family life was conducted. Khan studied at The Lawrence School, Sanawar in Himachal Pradesh, and was later sent to Lockers Park School in Hertfordshire at the age of nine. He next enrolled at Winchester College and explained that "I did not take advantage of my tenure [there]. My classmates went on to Oxford and Cambridge, but I was not academically inclined. When I applied myself, which was not often, I stood first. I should have studied harder." After graduating from the boarding school, Khan returned to India and worked for an advertising firm in Delhi for two months. He later appeared in a television commercial for Gwalior Suiting upon the insistence of a family friend, and was subsequently cast by director Anand Mahindroo. The project eventually got cancelled but Khan relocated to Mumbai to pursue a career in film; he recalls, "Finally I had some direction and focus. I remember [...] feeling so excited that I could go to Mumbai, stay in my own place and enjoy the adventure of starting my own career."