Saif Ali Khan was accosted by a stranger recently and it turned out to be none other than Academy award winning director Martin Scorcese. The Bollywood heartthrob was in Marrakech when the acclaimed director came up to him to talk about his mother Sharmila Tagore. The Raging Bull director, it turned out is a huge fan of Tagore's work in Satyajit Ray films like Devi and Apur Sansar.

"It was a surprise. He told me that he had grown up watching my mother in Satyajit Ray films and adores her. And that is amazing because he grew up in New York," said Khan who was in the city to promote the Taj Enlighten Film Society. But despite his pedigree, the actor, eldest child of the actress and legendary cricketer Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, says that Bollywood is a true democracy where only talent counts.

"If we all had to follow our parents calling, I should have been a cricketer. Our top star Shah Rukh Khan does not come from a filmy family, he is actually the first ever person in his family to become an actor. It's talent that matters, not your blood line," said the actor. The 40-year-old actor who is currently shooting his home production 'Agent Vinod', a action thriller, said that he grew up watching mafia flicks, on a rented VCR at his home in Bhopal.
    
"I grew up between Bhopal and Pataudi and there was not much to do and those were the times when we only had Doordarshan. So I used to watch movies and I remember the genre of crime used to fascinate me, the mafia, the Sicilian clan. I used to love all that," said Khan.

The actor says that his ultimate ambition is to restore the Pataudi Palace where he grew up ang grow old in it. "The property is very dear to me. My grandmother is buried there. It has been rented out to a hotel chain right now, who in turn rent it out for film shoots. I dream of restoring it to it's old glory and just grow old there," said Khan.