Kabir Bedi
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Relationships
Protima, Parveen Babi
April 11, 2021: The Times of India
Protima, Parveen Babi… people think I’m a lucky guy but only I know the price I paid: Kabir Bedi
In a memoir penned in the lockdown, actor Kabir Bedi opens up about his relationships with two very beautiful and unconventional women. An excerpt from ‘Stories I Must Tell’...
Our open marriage (Kabir and Protima’s) may have seemed like a good idea at first. In the end, it only caused me greater anxiety. It had led to a lack of intimacy between us. I didn’t feel the love that I wanted, the caring and sharing I needed. Nor was I able to give it. The old magic had gone. I was feeling alone, empty and dejected. Parveen Babi filled that void. She was a ravishingly beautiful actress with fair skin, long black hair and dark, mesmerising eyes. Until then, I’d always thought of her as “the girlfriend of Danny Denzongpa”. He was a good-looking Sikkimese actor, two years younger than me, a year older than Parveen. In the years ahead, he would become a highly successful villain in Bollywood and be nominated for many Filmfare Awards. Parveen began her rapid rise to stardom during their four years together. Her living openly with Danny, wearing jeans and smoking in public, had given her a bohemian image in India. But, morally, she was a conservative Gujarati girl. While the rest of the Juhu gang talked about the “free sex” preaching of Guru Osho, she believed in sexual fidelity. It’s what I was looking for when I fell in love with her.
There was no easy way to break the news (to Protima). “I’m going over to Parveen’s tonight,” I said softly when she came in. “Parveen’s!” she repeated in surprise. I could see her computing what must have happened. “But I’ve only just arrived. Can’t you stay tonight at least?” I shook my head. “No, I have to be with her tonight … and every night.” In that moment, she realised that our relationship had changed forever. She let out a deep breath and looked at me. “Do you love her?” I nodded, not without sadness. “Does she love you?” she asked, her voice a notch higher. “Yes,” I said gruffly, wanting to cry. I knew I was ending a relationship where we’d shared life-changing experiences together, happy and unhappy, moral and immoral, for six tumultuous years. But I didn’t want to show vulnerability. I had to be strong to end it. I held her by the shoulders to embrace her goodbye. She clung to me and burst out crying. Then she sat down on the bed and sighed deeply before she spoke. “Please leave me alone now,” she said in a firm voice as tears welled in her eyes. “Leave me alone. Please go!” Our “open marriage” was over.
Parveen’s traumas probably began in childhood. She saw spirits in the Mughal monuments connected to her family’s history near her ancestral home — the Babi Pashtun clan had once served Emperor Humayun. As a child, she felt disconnected from her family. That insecurity haunted her all her life. For all her beauty, talent and fame, it was ruining her life. There could have been deeper reasons. Director Mahesh Bhatt, my friend from the Juhu gang, told me what her mother said when Parveen broke down once: “Her father used to be like that.” Could genetics have been the cause? Mahesh told me another story. When riots engulfed Ahmedabad in 1969, the matron of St. Xavier’s College, where Parveen studied, had hidden Muslim girls in the back of a van and covered them with mattresses. Parveen, a teenager then, was one of them. That’s when she had her first panic attack.
By the middle of 1979, Parveen had signed over thirty films. Her problems only grew worse as she shot for them. In her biography, Parveen Babi, Karishma Upadhayay said, “One of the first publications to write about Parveen’s mental illness was Stardust. The ‘Scoop of the Month’ for its December 1979 issue declared that ‘Parveen Babi had cracked up’.” The article said our break-up had “left Parveen in a dizzying vacuum. She was like an object hurtling aimlessly through space.” Parveen’s world had fallen apart, and I was portrayed as the villain. Karishma described it well: “The narrative spun by the magazine portrayed Parveen as ‘a girl with a broken heart’ and supported the idea that ‘being unlucky in love’ pushed her over the edge. This is, in fact, what most people in Bollywood still believe.” Terrible things were written about me. It wasn’t a fair perception. Truth is, she was the one who left me and refused to let me help her.
In my days alone, I looked back on all we had shared. I remembered our love and passion. I felt for her suffering mind. But my long-suppressed resentments flared as well. I rued the shadows Parveen had cast on my most joyful years. I reminded myself it wasn’t her fault. Perhaps I was equally to blame. Maybe I should have walked away earlier. Yet I couldn’t; she’d needed me desperately. I’d seen myself as her protector. By then, I was mentally and emotionally exhausted. I’d gone from one emotionally draining woman to another, without a pause in between, leaving me no time for myself. People may think “what a lucky guy” for having one beautiful woman after another. Only I know the price I paid for being an impulsively emotional man.
In the end, I learned how Parveen had died. Her body was found in her Juhu flat four days after she died, a leg rotted by gangrene, a wheelchair by her bed. A lonely and tragic end of a star who had once been the fantasy of millions. Three men who had known and loved her — Mahesh, Danny and I — came for her funeral at the Muslim cemetery in Juhu. It was a solemn burial with Islamic rites and chants. We carried her body with relatives to a dimly lit grave. I felt for all she had suffered with a sorrow that came from my depths. Each of us had known her in ways not many knew. Each of us had loved her as only each one knew.
Kabir Bedi on love, life and false narratives
Mohua Das, April 11, 2021: The Times of India
From: Mohua Das, April 11, 2021: The Times of India
In an interview to Mohua Das, the actor talks about his memoir and more
On emotionally draining women and not opening up earlier…
Although a lot of terrible things were written about me, I didn’t really speak at the time except for one interview. Both Parveen and Protima were remarkable women who had their strengths and their weaknesses as do I. But it was better the story was told in context as I’ve done in the book.
Parveen, son Siddharth and mental health…
What I realised is that for all the suffering that someone afflicted with it goes through, the family that supports them goes through an equally big trauma... the person they see is not behaving like the person they knew. And no matter how irrational the behaviour or problem is, or how difficult it gets, never stop loving them.
On Protima Bedi saying that “any woman in Kabir’s life is just a small part of his existence”…
In fact, ambition has never been my driving force. But professional and personal pressures add up and sometimes the woman in your life feels neglected. In case of Protima, she was a diva and wanted to be at the centrestage so anything that took away from that was something that affected her. Her book was full of amazing honesty and many half-truths. But Protima pretty much did what she wanted to do. She was a spirited force of nature. Till her passing we remained good friends, a wonderful relationship that went beyond being husband and wife.
Not giving up on marriage…
I’m an eternal romantic. I never give up on love so I’ve moved from one relationship to another which came to their own end for their own reasons. A lot of people ask me ‘Why do you have to get married again? You can be free and do what you like…’ But I want to share my life and I’m finding it most fulfilling sharing my life with my wife Parveen (Dusanj) today.
