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Book Review: Stories I Must Tell-The Emotional Life Of An Actor – By Kabir Bedi

en Bollywood News Book Review: Stories I Must Tell-The Emotional Life Of An Actor – By Kabir Bedi

First things first: Eminent writer Salim Khan once said that a celebrity’s autobiography can never be completely honest, and so cannot be written if that is the intention. Kabir Bedi’s fascinating life story both proves Salim’s contention and defies it: the book is nothing but honest and has been written! His title and the suffix say it all: these are stories he clearly wanted to tell, and not only highlight his emotional side but his entire chequered journey in a fascinating life.

Book Review Stories I Must Tell-The Emotional Life Of An Actor - By Kabir Bedi

Book Review: Stories I Must Tell-The Emotional Life Of An Actor – By Kabir Bedi

After reading it, we can only pray that the rest of his remarkable life (he is 75 now, happily married—at last—to a much-younger Parveen Dusanj, whom he describes as “an empowering wife”) be full of smoothness, cheer and brightness. After all, one person going through so much, because of his famous parents’ unique lives and deaths, an ex-wife, his girlfriend for long, a favourite son who passed away too soon and many other professional, material and spiritual adventures and misadventures spanning the globe shows that Kabir is no less than a real-life superman. Because he has endured everything—and stayed sane.

And he possesses a fabulous memory to write a coherent autobiography that is a “hide nothing-show all” tale of his life, told non-chronologically. The first story, with a twisted end that made him leave New Delhi for good, thanks to All India Radio’s sarkari and bureaucratic ways, is triumphant in the beginning: his meeting with the men who were his idols, the Beatles, when he was working for AIR in New Delhi at the raw age of 20.

Kabir manages a gripping narrative in each segment—there are seven chapters, each focusing on a different aspect or person. He discusses two of his women—wife Protima and long-lasting girlfriend Parveen Babi—in a chapter each, discussing their foibles and strengths as well as his own in great, vivid detail.

The descriptions, even when sometimes seeming negative, are compassionate, deeply emotional, very personal and so real that we see the great and good, bad, and terrible times he had with each of them when they were together. His other ex-wives, Ixchel and Nikki, get comparatively less space.

Kabir’s father died a philosopher in Italy and his mother Freda in New Delhi as the only Western woman to have received the highest ordination for Buddhist nuns. Their lives and even demises are described with incredible passion and style. Even more lucid and riveting are the stories of their romance, marriage (Freda was from England) and magical relationship they shared that went from India’s freedom struggle to the beginning of their individual spiritual journeys. Their sheer bond was incredible.

Quite naturally, the saga of Sandokan (Kabir’s biggest triumph, and an international one) is combined with Parveen Babi in the longest chapter (82 pages), accounting for over a fourth of the book. We get a glimpse of Kabir’s spectacular and global success as an actor mainly in this chapter, though in later chapters, Kabir underscores his failure in Hollywood.

Parveen comes across as a very human, disturbed soul and we can only marvel at Kabir’s predilection for eccentric/disturbed/moody women then and his determination to be good and loyal to them (Protima being the other one), unconditionally. He takes great joy in being proud of their accomplishments even if downplaying his own role in their triumphs. It suggests an evolved, very tender-hearted human being behind the actor-star.

One short chapter, Ramblings On A Beach, is about his beliefs and the changes in them. A man who was a Sikh by birth but believed in the sanctity and practice of all religions, Kabir also came across as a highly spiritual individual who could still be a worldly, extremely handsome and masculine man who could enjoy his drink and casual relationships with the friends he made all over the world.

This candid reveal of his life sees a plethora of names with whom he had intimate or casual relationships, meetings, friendships and bonds: everyone from India’s Khushwant Singh and Rajiv Gandhi to stars like Rakesh and Hrithik Roshan to the Pope, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Federico Fellini and so many global icons of cinema and theater. His crystal-clear memory makes even the smallest interactions come alive.

But nowhere does this memory perform better than in his moving chapter on his loving and brilliant son Siddharth, who suffered from schizophrenia and committed suicide. This is the most richly emotional chapter in the book and if the honesty of the rest of the book is searing, this one is scalding, devastating: an unfinished, partly guilt-ridden story of a father who always felt inadequate in his approach towards a son who was miserable with his mental pain and suffering.

The last chapter, which includes the role of his young wife Parveen Dusanj, is the optimistic ‘Story To Tell’, happily no less emotional. It is the proverbial happy ending to a blazingly successful professional saga with so many dark and disturbing personal undercurrents.

Clearly, life is no bed of roses for even those who attain fame and respect around the world. The under layers—happy and sad—matter for the human being within. This is an ‘open book’ on a fascinating journey of an extraordinary man, whom I never knew had so many shades to him when I had met him some years back.

Also Read: “He has paved the way for many actors like us,” says Priyanka Chopra Jonas while launching Kabir Bedi’s memoir, Stories I Must Tell: The Emotional Life of an Actor


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