He is known for his unbridled honesty and deadpan wit, as well as for the fact that he wears his lineage lightly on his sleeve. All of these traits popped up quite often when Saif Ali Khan made his way to a Young Leaders Forum (YLF) session recently. The session — titled ‘Ignite the race to the end with Saif Ali Khan’ — was held aboard the Vivada Cruise — and was preceded by Aditya Agarwal and Saloni Sureka taking over as joint YLF chairpersons for 2026 from 2025 co-chairs Sagar Agarwal and Pratiik Jalan.

The session with Saif was jointly moderated by outgoing chairpersons Agarwal and Jalan. In an impromptu moment at the end of the session, the actor also caught hold of a guitar placed on stage and strummed it for a few minutes, much to the delight of those present.

When asked about his connection with Calcutta, given his Bengali roots courtesy mother Sharmila Tagore, Saif recalled both his childhood in the city (“my grandparents lived here”) as well as his time spent in Calcutta shooting a few films, including Parineeta.

“I love the roads in Calcutta... there are some really beautiful homes in this city. I would love going to the Tolly Club earlier, which I, unfortunately, haven’t been to in many years. I really want to go and see it,” said the 55-year-old actor, dapper as always in denims paired with a brown blazer.

He added: “There are some incredible memories of shooting Parineeta in Calcutta and Darjeeling. I remember the railway station very well, as well as the river. There was some very nice music in that film. Playing guitar while sailing on the river remains memorable.”

Being a part of the Pataudi and Tagore families — both peopled with towering achievers — Saif spoke about the pressure of expectations which came his way when he started out. “When you have parents like that, there is a certain pressure that you have to do something ‘sensible’. You can’t waste your time doing nothing. But my parents (Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi and Sharmila Tagore) were always very supportive of what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be.”

Saif also said that he carried his nawabi lineage lightly, something that had been instilled in him by his father. As someone who has inherited a legacy and also built personal relevance, what did he have to unlearn as a nawab in order to survive as an actor, was what he was asked by a member of the audience. “My father had told us: ‘We will educate you and that is the kind of inheritance you should expect from us.’ There are no such things as nawabs anymore... we live in a modern society. Honestly, it is far more exciting to be a movie actor.”

“It is, of course, lovely to have the kind of house and garden and library that becomes with being the Nawab of Pataudi,” he added with a smile. “But to think you are someone important because of that is not something we have been been brought up with.”

Saif and wife Kareena Kapoor Khan are the co-owners of the Tiigers of Kolkata cricket team in the Indian Street Premier League (ISPL). They acquired the team in 2024 to support the tennis ball T10 tournament, which focuses on identifying grassroots cricketing talent.

Talking about it at YLF, Saif, whose relationship with cricket is deep — he is, after all, the son of Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi (aka Tiger Pataudi) and the grandson of Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi, both of who captained the Indian cricket team — said that acquiring the team was an informed decision for him.

Talk then veered to family, with Saif revealing how much of a support Kareena has always been for him. “She has brought in a lot of love and light into my life. She is very loving and giving, and a very good sounding board. She is a wonderful mother to our sons and she knows how to balance family life and being a superstar very well.”

Known for breaking through the clutter with his varied choice of roles on screens both big and small, Saif was one of the first to ride the wave of the OTT boom in India with his breakout series Sacred Games. When asked about what that experience was like, he said: “Sacred Games had the unique distinction of being both a first mover and a clutter breaker. Both Anurag Kashyap and Vikram Motwane (Vikramaditya Motwane) took Sacred Games to a whole new level. At that time, there was Narcos, which everyone loved internationally. If a show that is set in Mexico could become an international phenomenon, then a made-in-India show could also do the same... that is what Netflix was thinking at that time. Anurag and Vikram — with their company Phantom Films (now defunct) — put their best foot forward with Sacred Games. A lot of production houses, when they venture into OTT, have a separate arm to produce OTT content... sometimes there is a demarcation in their minds between a big-screen actor and an OTT actor. But we set out to make Sacred Games saying that no, there is no difference. The idea was to bring top-class entertainment to the small screen and Sacred Games did exactly that.”

Saif has always been a rare film star whose life is not dominated by the movies. Well read and well bred, he has the ability to converse and debate on a variety of subjects, loves to travel and sipping a glass of wine with an engaging read has, as he has always maintained, been one of his favourite things to do. When asked what he was currently reading, the actor — who will next be seen in films Haiwaan and Kartavya as well as the Netflix series Hum Hindustani — revealed that his reading list is diverse. “There are some books on gardening that I am reading at the moment, as well as on cricket.”

If not an actor, who would Saif be? “I really don’t know. Before I became an actor, I once went to work in an advertising agency, which I thought was very interesting.”

Owning a vineyard in France is also on Saif’s list of possible alternatives to being an actor. “Something like Château Margaux, maybe. But then again, maybe it is a stressful job... it’s just fun on the outside!” he winked, followed by a hearty laugh.

Being an art dealer is also on the cards. “Something artsy would be nice. Wearing nice clothes and talking about how you would like to buy a painting worth $54 million dollars. I wouldn’t mind doing that,” he signed off.