Bollywood star Kareena Kapoor Khan says she felt “terrible” when she was trolled for naming her sons Taimur and Jehangir. In a recent interview with The Guardian, the 40-year-old talked about her pregnancy phase, her new book "Kareena Kapoor Khan’s Pregnancy Bible", trolling around the names of her children she shares with actor-husband Saif Ali Khan. The star couple welcomed their second baby, a boy on February 21 this year. They have faced a lot of criticism on social media over the names of their kids.
Referring to the trolling as “unfathomable”, Kareena said these are the names that they had liked and that there is nothing much more to it. “Honestly, these are names that we just liked; it’s nothing else. They are beautiful names and they’re beautiful boys. It’s unfathomable why somebody would troll children. I feel terrible about it, but I have to just focus and get through it. I can’t be looking at my life through the trolls,” the actor told the British newspaper.
While the pair had revealed the name of their first child Taimur, born in 2016 to the media, they refrained from doing so when it came to their newborn. The name of their second son Jehangir, also called Jeh, however, surfaced on social media when her recent book was released.
When asked if she was worried about the religiously polarised India in which her children are growing up, Kareena said, “Please don’t ask me this question. You know how it is; it’s very complicated. I’m really sorry.”
She also discussed the issue of pay parity in Bollywood and the never-ending debate on nepotism.
Addressing the issue of equal pay, Kareena said there has been a shift in Bollywood as a lot of female actors have started being vocal about it.
“Just a few years ago, no one would talk about a man or woman actually getting equal pay in a movie. Now there are a lot of us being very vocal about it,” she said.
“I make it quite clear what I want and I think that respect should be given. It’s not about being demanding, it''s about being respectful towards women. And I think things are kind of changing,” she added.
Kareena, who hails from the iconic Kapoor film family of the Indian film industry, said she has got work purely on the basis of her hard work.
“When Karisma (her elder sister) joined the film industry, she was the only one in the family working. So it was us, the women, who took the dynasty forward,” she said.
