Actress Soha Ali Khan says the biggest struggle of her life has been with her profession as an actor.
At the launch of her biography, The Perils of Being Moderately Famous, in Mumbai on Tuesday, Khan was asked about the toughest chapter to write.
“The toughest chapter to write was probably the one called Working Actor. The other chapters sort of fell together in place. But really, my struggle has been with my profession as an actor, which is such an important part of my life,” she said.
“The insecurities coming along with it, comparisons that are made which are very difficult to live up to and I feel there is a very big shoe to fill. I also feel that striking the right tone with readers about my failures, insecurities and the learning step that come across, but at the same time, not being too hard on myself, was most difficult thing for me,” she added.
Asked what prompted her to write a book, Khan said: “Earlier, I have written a couple of columns and essays, but to write 40,000-50,000 words is a huge task. I wanted to write non-fiction because I don’t have the imagination for creative fiction. I felt certain things about my life that I could draw from and that might be humorous.
“It is interesting to be me — to belong to this family of actors and the kind of experiences I have had about education, travel and love. And I did share that with some of my family members and friends. My family and friends are not the kind of people who blindly praise me. There was a lot of constructive feedback and it was more or less encouraging — that’s how I wrote this book”.
Khan, in her book, didn’t hesitate to reveal some unknown facts about her life.
“I am genuinely quite a reserved person. You can chat with me for hours, and then go away and still not know much about me. So, this time I made an effort. My mother also said that you should be honest because your readers want to know about you, but at the same time strike the right balance between giving away too much and also when it comes to humour like this, you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself but you also should be able to laugh at yourself in the right spirit,” she said.
Talking about her future projects, Khan said: “I have already finished writing. The timing was very good for writing the book because I was pregnant at the time when I started to write this book. So, I used those 8 months of my pregnancy period to focus on writing. In fact, there is a chapter about being pregnant because that’s the only thing that was running on my mind most of the time.
“At the moment, project Inaaya [daughter] is taking all my time. And I will be doing Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster 3 next.”
