Daily Times

Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan breaks his silence on the plans to turn his ancestral home, the Pataudi Palace, into a museum.

Bollywood Nawab Saif Ali Khan, who now owns the ancestral Pataudi Palace, originally constructed by his grandfather and previously owned by his father, late cricketer Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, addressed the reports of the plans, to turn it into a museum, to put a spotlight on the history of their family.

In a new interview with an Indian media outlet, Khan reflected, “Heritage-wise, the house belongs to different people over time. My father was born a nawab, he was a nawab. He lived life on his terms and he was the most amazing man. He said that times have changed and he decided to rent the house out to a hotel”

“I remember my grandmother telling me, ‘Never do that’. It’s got a lot of history and that’s something I take pride in,” he added. “My grandparents are buried there, my father is buried there. It’s my family home. There are a lot of these old houses, we call them the Darbar halls, but I find that an outdated name. I want to call it the long room, after the hall at Lord’s.”

He further dismissed the rumours indirectly saying, “This house was built by the seventh nawab of Pataudi and my father. I want to put up their cricket places and bats and I really want to restore this house with their spirit. That’s been my dream and it’s almost done.”

Notably, the Pataudi Palace, which spans 10 acres and has 150 rooms, including seven dressing rooms, seven bedrooms, seven billiard rooms, as well as palatial drawing rooms and dining rooms, is located in Haryana’s Gurgaon district.

Currently, Khan’s mother and veteran actor Sharmila Tagore lives there, whereas, the family also uses it as a vacation home and rents it out for film and TV production.