In a recent Vogue interview, Zahaan Khan, the younger son of iconic Bollywood star Zeenat Aman, opens up about the complex experience of growing up in the shadow of a legend. Now 35, Zahaan is a culinary arts graduate and a freelance music composer who has slowly carved out his own creative identity while navigating the long shadow of his mother’s fame and the nuanced role of social media in his life.
“I taught myself how to play the guitar when I was sixteen because I wanted to be friends with all the cool guys who had girlfriends,” he chuckles. “But something lit up in me. I became interested in making original tunes as opposed to covering songs.”
That spark eventually led him into music professionally. Since 2019, Zahaan has released work under the pseudonym Zanuski, composing original scores for independent films and documentaries. His music career, though under the radar, has been steadily building, shaped more by quiet introspection than public exposure.
Growing up with a mother whose name once dominated magazine covers and silver screens wasn’t always easy to comprehend as a child. It was only later that Zahaan began to truly grasp the magnitude of his mother’s fame.
“When I was a child, I was so used to her getting attention everywhere we went that I didn’t realise it wasn’t normal,” he notes. “It was only in my twenties, when I started travelling with her and saw people from different parts of the world just throwing themselves at her in adulation, that it struck me how much her body of work has truly affected people. My mother always brings up this one Russian fan–an old lady in her 60s or 70s — who would fly down from Russia every year on her birthday, ring the doorbell and bring her a popular type of Russian bread and a greeting card. Something like that really puts things into perspective.”
{{/usCountry}}“When I was a child, I was so used to her getting attention everywhere we went that I didn’t realise it wasn’t normal,” he notes. “It was only in my twenties, when I started travelling with her and saw people from different parts of the world just throwing themselves at her in adulation, that it struck me how much her body of work has truly affected people. My mother always brings up this one Russian fan–an old lady in her 60s or 70s — who would fly down from Russia every year on her birthday, ring the doorbell and bring her a popular type of Russian bread and a greeting card. Something like that really puts things into perspective.”
{{/usCountry}}Yet despite growing up around celebrity culture, Zahaan remains deeply grounded — and cautious, especially when it comes to his relationship with social media. “Having seen his mother subjected to the intense scrutiny that comes with fame, he is generally more cautious about what he shares publicly. “She has always been someone who values her privacy, and I’ve been very cognizant of that,” he states, “I’m still toying with what I’d like to put out on social media. There’s always a tug and pull, but I know there’s a fine line between vulnerability and oversharing.”
Even though Aman stepped back from public life during her children’s formative years, the legacy of her stardom was always present, quiet, but unmistakable. Today, Zahaan continues to find his own rhythm, in music and in life. His story isn’t one of riding on a famous surname, but of learning to navigate inherited fame with grace.