Suprised?

Well, so was Amir Khan as Soha says. 

The Perils of Being Moderately Famous is full of such witty and fun anecdotes from the star's (Soha literally means Star in Arabic, she says) life. Saying too much about this would just take the fun away. It's such a detailed book, that divulging one would give away a lot.

Right at the start she says her book is all about her, her and her; and no else at all. Well it's true. She doesn't tell stories of her family members unless she is involved. So no revelations about Kareena Kapoor's workout regime or whether Taimur Ali Khan is actually made of flesh and bones or of flour and milk (Kareena Kapoor fans please take note).

She begins by talking about her paternal family. The Nawab clan. Despite the era they belonged to they were quite progressive. Love and aptitude for sports is something which is passed on from generation to generation, but has probably come to a stop at her generation? Also her paternal side is a family believing in "love marriages" and not political marriages.

She talks about her Bengali connect too. Her mother, Sharmila Thakur, is a Bengali lady who rocked the world of cinema for quite a while. She is still revered and loved and remembered. Also if you don't know, she is a descendant of Rabindranath Thakur, the Tagore family as the anglicized people would say. This book clearly delineates how exactly is she related to that family. But hold your horses, her daughter, the author in question, doesn't speak Bengali like a bong. But she did speak a couple of lines in the Apeejay Kolkata Literary Meet, and seemed very fluent actually!

Now to speak of her life in totality, she has been an academically star student, gone to Balliol College, Oxford University, then to London School of Economics and Political Science, had a highly paid dream job in a bank which she couldn't wrap her head around and then ventured into the world of films which rudely snatched the ladder from her feet. And she takes us through this journey of 39 years chapter by chapter (no, there aren't 39 chapters to her book, she writes about each phase in a chapter). In those pages you will get to know a lot about her father Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi and your respect for him will soar. The justification to his nick name Tiger Pataudi is described well in words. These aren't biased words from a daughter about her father. She backs them up with all the cricket-y recorded proof of how he slayed in his prime time (cricket fanatics don't wince in fear by thinking that she is an actress what does she know of cricket, must have got all the terms muddled up. Worry not. She hasn't. She is quite smart that way.) Her mother, though had a busy life where she was often away, sometimes for long durations, would always drop her two daughters to school every morning, whenever she was at home. So much so that when she was down with chicken pox (thanks to her youngest daughter) she went to see her off at school wrapped from top to bottom, afraid that someone would see that she was a walking house of virus, just because Soha refused to go to school without her. Then she talks about her years in college, my favourite part. Her college life is quite a read I tell you. She has had some amazing travel experiences to foreign lands and no, not in Business class of a fancy plane.

Her mother had given her one valuable advice among many, which she didn't heed by eventually. Her mother had warned her against marrying an actor; they are attention seekers and either work too much or not at all, and both of these pose as a problem. But now she is married to Kunal Khemu; an actor. And she ends this novel talking about her marriage to the man she had spoken exactly 2 sentences with on their first meeting and on her newly achieved parenthood.

What she wanted to convey, through the title and the content, is how she felt dwarfed, both in height and fame, in comparison to her entire lineage. But it's clearly not in a way that will make you feel sorry for her, hell she isn't even sorry for herself; all because she talks about the highs which she has achieved in her life which mean a lot to her even if they mean nothing else to the world at large.

I feel it's a fun read and a lot of delicious little details about dreams and life in general and her life as well, are strewn about in her book. Also you might want to sit armed with a dictionary 'cause this lady knows her words very well.