Saba Pataudi recalls brain tumour diagnosis at 27 after fainting on the road

Saba Pataudi, the sister of Saif Ali Khan and Soha Ali Khan, has opened up about being diagnosed with a brain tumour at 27. The first sign was a sudden faint, with nothing to warn her before it.

Speaking with Soha on her podcast, Saba said she had no earlier symptoms. She was about to go out with a friend and thought her stomach was the problem, since it has always been sensitive. Then everything went blank. "When I regained consciousness, I had already fallen on the road, just outside the building," she said. She passed out a second time and took 20 to 25 minutes to feel properly conscious again.

An MRI found a shadow in the third ventricle of her brain. Doctors first thought it was a colloid cyst, said it was slow-growing and told her surgery could wait up to two years. Having fainted twice, Saba did not want to risk another blackout.

She had the operation about six months after the scan. Only then did doctors identify the growth as a pilocytic astrocytoma, a benign tumour that is generally low-grade and slow-growing. Because it was attached to an area linked to her short-term memory, the surgeons removed as much as they could without causing more damage.

The news left her numb, she admitted, and she would cry without knowing why. Her biggest fear was losing her independence. "I didn't want to be dependent on anyone. I didn't want to become a vegetable," she said. When she asked about radiation, hoping to finish everything at once, her doctor told her nothing would be done unless it was needed.

Explaining why she went public, Saba said personal stories can encourage others to seek medical advice.