Protima Bedi

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Protima Bedi at Juhu

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Vinod Mehta’s recollections

Outlook

Kabir Bedi, then a rising Bollywood star, had emerged as the sole spokesman intelligently defending our magazine (Debonair). In interview after interview, he would ask if we were a nation of prudes and hypocrites. He welcomed Debonair’s brave attempt to make India proud of its heritage and Khajuraho past. The naked female body was a thing to celebrate, he argued. Of course, only till such time as the naked female body did not belong to his wife.

I had got to know Protima Bedi well. She shared her husband’s views on the naked body; only she was more genuine. So, when I got a call from her asking if I would like to have a look at some ‘lovely’ pictures of her in the raw, I could hardly contain my enthusiasm. The pictures were more than ‘lovely’, they were a knockout—beautifully shot and composed, evoking Protima’s scrumptious dark anatomy magnificently. I quickly sent her a model contract form, which she duly signed. I barged into (proprietor) Susheel Somani’s cabin: “You won’t believe it, but we have Protima Bedi’s nudes!” It was a coup.

In the ’70s, four-colour printing was a laborious process; you printed one colour at a time—red, yellow, black and blue. We had printed two of the four colours, when Kabir rang. He did not sound friendly. Would I immediately return the Protima pictures, they were not to be used. Too late, chum, I told him, they are already on the machine, being printed.

The next day two Bollywood heavies—oily moustache, technicolor handkerchief around the neck, menacing rings on each finger—arrived unannounced. “Sahib ne bola photo nahin chhapne ka hai (Sahib has said the pictures are not to be printed),” they thundered. One of them rudely stubbed his cigarette on my ashtray.

A couple of hours later, Protima rang. She was distraught. “Kabir is behaving like a bastard. He says his career will be ruined if the pictures are published. Can you help?” She disclosed that her marriage was on the line. The last plea, about the break-up of marriage, got me. With great difficulty and at enormous cost, we pulled the centrespread off the machine. “I’ll make it up to you,” Protima promised. She never did.

Source

Lucknow Boy: A Memoir

By By Vinod Mehta

Penguin/Viking | Pages: 325 | Rs .499