Tahira Kashyap says she ‘refused to open arms’ when doctor asked her to hold newborn son, didn’t feel ‘mother’s love’

Writer-filmmaker Tahira Kashyap, the wife of actor Ayushmann Khurrana, said that she did not feel any maternal love immediately after her son Virajveer was born. She added that the emotions ‘come slowly with time’ and not ‘instantly’.

During an Instagram live with actor Neha Dhupia, Tahira opened up about Virajveer’s cesarean section birth. She also said that it was seen as a taboo that she did not have a ‘normal’ delivery.

Tahira said, “When the baby came out after 12 hours of intense labour, the doctor was just looking at me like, ‘Yeh lo apna bachcha (Here, take your baby).’ And I refused to open my arms. All those feelings that I had read about in the books, also heard from my mother and grandmother, all the tales of mother’s love, kuch aaya hi nahi (I didn’t feel anything). And I just didn’t want to be pretentious about it.”

“So then, I had two sets of eyes staring at me. Nowadays, kids are born with open eyes, as you would know. My son and my doctor, both of them are just staring at me. And the maximum I could do was, I just wriggled my nose against his and I was like, ‘Now you can take him to his family.’ And the doctor was mortified. ‘What do you mean, his family?’ I was like, ‘Baaki ki family (The rest of the family)’,” she added, with a laugh.

Tahira has two children - Virajveer and Varushka - with Ayushmann. She has written about her journey of motherhood in her new book, The 7 Sins of Being A Mother. She has previously written The 12 Commandments of Being A Woman and I Promise…

Also read | Tahira Kashyap shares encounter with Ayushmann Khurrana in flight washroom post honeymoon: ‘We took off quite literally’

Recently, Tahira directed the short film, Quaranteen Crush, in the Netflix anthology, Feels Like Ishq. She will soon make her feature film debut as a director with Sharmaji Ki Beti, starring Sakshi Tanwar, Divya Dutta and Saiyami Kher.