‘I thought I might die’: Saif recalls being stabbed, says he wants to forgive the attacker

In January last year, Saif Ali Khan was hospitalised after sustaining multiple stab injuries during an attempted burglary at his Mumbai home. Since then, the actor has spoken about the terrifying night on several occasions, describing how he confronted the intruder in a bid to protect his children. Now, in a conversation with Mojo Story, he has revisited the incident once again, saying he would like to forgive the accused and move on.

He recalled, “The burglar broke in through the bathroom window. The next thing I know, we’re lying in bed, and this nanny comes in and says, in Hindi, ‘Jeh baba ke kamre mein koi aaya hai. Uske haath mein chhuri hai. Usko paisa chahiye.’ (Someone has entered Jeh baba’s room. He has a knife in his hand. He wants money.) So I was like, ‘What?’ I was half asleep. I went in there and saw this guy holding a knife. He had cut the baby a little bit, and he had cut the maid a little bit. He was standing there with this knife.”

Saif further said, “Maybe, you know, if I had put the lights on and said, ‘Do you know where you are? Do you know what you’re doing?’ maybe I could have talked him out of it. But I did something, I don’t know, something took over. It was a little crazy. I jumped on him, and we had this fight. He went crazy with these knives, and there were cuts and blood everywhere. He wasn’t a very big fellow, but two knives are two knives. There were cuts everywhere, and it kind of just got out of hand.”

‘I thought I might die’

He also spoke about how his house help saved him, “And just then my big Nepalese maid came in, picked him up, and chucked him across the room, off me. I mean, she really saved me. Then we went upstairs. At one point we were grabbing ceremonial swords kept on the wall as decoration to fight with. Then she locked the door while he was inside, and we got out the way he had come in. Then I noticed I was standing there in a kurta-pyjama, covered in blood.”

Recalling how close he felt to death, he said, “At one point I was lying on the floor, and I thought I might die. There’s something about adrenaline. I don’t know, they say a warrior’s death is quite a good one. I don’t know if you’ll accept this, but it’s not a bad way to go, in the sense that there’s so much adrenaline in you that you feel incredibly happy. I felt I’d had a full life, and it’s been absolutely amazing. I just wanted to see maybe one of the kids, hold their hand, and say goodbye. I thought, ‘It’s been brilliant. I’ve had an absolutely amazing life.’ I really did cherish that. Then, you know, I kind of woke up a bit more and said, ‘No, it’s not time yet.’”

Saif Ali Khan suffered multiple stab injuries in a terrifying incident.

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‘I want to forgive this guy’

Recalling the drive to the hospital, Saif said he travelled there with his son Taimur. He remembered arriving at the emergency ward in an auto-rickshaw before doctors rushed him for treatment.

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“We headed to the hospital. I really wanted to be with Tim. He was giving me a lot of strength and calm. I said, ‘Will you come with me?’ He looked at me and said, ‘Are you going to die?’ I said, ‘No. But there’s something in my back that hurts a lot. I’m not going to die. I’m fine. But you come with me.’ He said, ‘Okay, I’ll come with you.’ We went to the hospital together. It was around four in the morning. Everyone in the emergency room was asleep. We pulled up in an auto-rickshaw. I remember saying to this guy, ‘Get a stretcher. Stretcher, now.’ He was like, ‘Huh?’ So I looked at him and said, ‘I’m Saif Ali Khan.’ He went, ‘Oh? Oh my God…’ Then he looked at the blood. I said, ‘Get a stretcher.’ Then all hell broke loose, as you can imagine. We had the best doctors there. Everyone took the right decisions.”

He added that, over time, the family has processed the incident and moved past it, saying, “Jeh even gave me a plastic sword and said, ‘Sleep with this next time.’ We’ve all processed it quite healthily.” Reflecting on the accused, he said, “I even want to forgive this guy because I think he made a huge mistake, and I don’t think he was even looking for a fight. I probably shouldn’t have jumped him. I could have talked him out of it, and it could have been all right. Now he’s probably going to spend a long time in jail. I would be happy to forgive him.”

He further added, “I think it’s really a question of haves and have-nots. It’s the kind of inequality that’s led to this. I know it’s unfair, what happened. I think he was just looking for a meal or a buck or something. And if I had put the light on and he had seen what he was doing, he might have said, ‘Oops, I’ve made a big mistake.’”