Fans of actor Sharmila Tagore were shocked when she revealed that she had battled lung cancer during the pandemic. During a recent chat, her daughter Soha Ali Khan reflected on that period as she opened up about her fears and said that “untimely death” was the biggest one for her. Soha lost her father Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi in 2011. He was 70. In a chat with Nayandeep Rakshit on his YouTube channel, Soha was asked if she was more worried for her mother since she had already experienced the loss of one parent. “My biggest fear is untimely death and the loss of loved ones because you can handle everything else but those are things that affect me more and I think about that all the time. I am grateful for the fact that at least when it comes to cancer or when it comes to things like lung cancer, the most important thing is prevention and detection and that happened at a miraculously early stage,” she said. ALSO READ | Bobby Deol says he was ‘taken aback’ when Aryan Khan told him that twist in The Ba***ds of Bollywood: ‘I didn’t even tell my family’ In an earlier chat with the same channel, Soha had revealed that Sharmila did not have to go through chemotherapy after her diagnosis. “With my mother, she was one of the very few people to be diagnosed with lung cancer at stage zero, and no chemotherapy, nothing. It was cut out of her and she is, touchwood, fine,” she said. Previously, on Koffee with Karan, director Karan Johar had shared that he wanted Sharmila to be a part of Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani. He had offered her the part that was ultimately played by Shabana Azmi. Sharmila revealed, “It was at the height of COVID. They hadn’t really grappled with COVID at that time, we were not vaccinated. After my cancer… They didn’t want me to take that risk.” Since then, Sharmila has appeared in Gulmohar and Puratawn.
