Timepass , livre ebook

Pooja Bedi

TIMEPASS
The Memoirs of Protima Bedi
Contents
About the Author
Editor s Introduction
Introduction
My First Death
The Early Years
First Loves
Meeting Kabir
Marriage
Europe
Finding A Purpose
The Split
A New Direction
Finding A Balance
A Beautiful Relationship
Moving On
Blind Date
A Dream Come True
Shaping Nrityagram
My Flesh And Blood
Sanyas
Afterword
Source Notes
Illustrations
Follow Penguin
Copyright
PENGUIN BOOKS
TIMEPASS
Protima Bedi was born in Delhi in 1949. A prominent model in Bombay in the late sixties and early seventies, she married the film actor Kabir Bedi in 1969, and had two children, Pooja and Siddharth. She separated from Kabir in 1978. Protima started learning odissi dance in 1975 and within a few years, became an accomplished dancer. In 1989, she established Nrityagram, a dance village on the outskirts of Bangalore. Protima died in 1998.
Pooja Bedi Ebrahim was born in Bombay in 1970. She has been a successful film and theatre actress and a model and now designs bedroom accessories. She is currently working on a book on pregnancy. Pooja lives in Bombay with her husband and daughter.
Editor s Introduction
Passion, compassion, laughter. I couldn t describe Protima Bedi better. As a mother she was phenomenal. She brought joy into our lives with her constant need to be different and creative. She was determined never to lead an ordinary life.
Almost everything about our childhood was unique and full of fun. Siddharth and I were taught the alphabet on sandy beaches, not on slate or paper. We dined on top of our car, in gardens, on the beach, in a tent in our living room, even in our bathtubs! Rarely was it the normal dining room scenario. Our bedroom was ever changing. One day there would be a lake in it for her water babies -a round blue satin mattress on a dark blue carpet, and a wall-to-wall poster of Swiss mountains. Another day there would be bunk beds for her precious army children (when we were studying at the military boarding school in Sanawar). Our birthdays were celebrated wherever we wanted. Siddharth once cut his cake in the clowns tent at a circus, and because I wanted snow on one of my birthdays (in the month of May), she took us all the way up to Rohtang Pass.
She would come to our school with a hang-dog expression and say to the teachers, Their nani is very ill, and whisk us away to Alibaug, Powai, Lonavla or Panchgani in her crazy car which she had got us and all her friends to paint with funky motifs-flowers, stars, hearts and scarlet lips. We d go tenting in the middle of nowhere, just the three of us, carrying canned food and cold drinks. This kidnapping routine became so frequent that whenever she entered the classroom, Siddharth and I would groan, Oh, no! Not again! Needless to say, our attendance was never very impressive. And if she caught us doing homework, she would shriek, Why are you bringing work home from school? This is my time with you! Do I give you work from home to take to school?
I remember the time when our school issued forms on which we were required to state our religion. It confused me. What was I? My mom was half Bengali, half Haryanvi. My dad was half British with traces of German and French blood, his mother had become a Buddhist nun, and on his father s side he was the eighteenth descendent of Guru Nanak. So what did that make me?
Indian, Mom said. You will write Indian. And if they have a problem with that let them come and talk to me. They have no business asking you your religion. How is that the basis for an educational qualification?
She was never the conventional mother. She was a friend who kept no secrets from us and did not expect us to keep any from her. When she streaked, I was barely five years old. I was very upset and told her, All the children in my school say that their mummies said you ran nanga. She kept quiet for a minute, then slowly, and very intensely, she said to me, This is my life. No one has the right to tell me how to live it or to question what I do. When you grow up, you will make your own choices. It will be your life and you will live it your way. I will never interfere. It must be awful for these people to have such boring lives that all they can do to make them interesting is to talk about somebody else s life. I m glad I provided them with timepass conversation.
Many uncles drifted in and out of our lives, mostly showering us with gifts and chocolates. Mom always made sure we were included in everything, so we would accompany her on many of her dinner dates (especially if she thought the man might be the lecherous kind). We danced around midnight bonfires with her and her friends, went to parties and to discotheques. (I m told that I was put in a basket and taken off to the disco when I was barely two months old. )
When Pandit Jasraj entered her life, she was infused, much to our chagrin, with a passion for classical music. At six every morning we would hear the gentle strains of the taanpura, and then this awful Aaaaaaaaa . We would suffer it for ten minutes or so, and when we could not bear it any longer, we would pounce on her and gag her. We named her Cacofonix, after that awful bard in the Asterix comics. Even in our letters we used to lovingly refer to her as Caco.
When she started her dance practice, she would go thump, thump, thump-at six in the morning again-to some badly taped music. We would bury our heads under our pillows and wait for Asrani, who lived in the flat below us, to stop her. He would arrive, grumpy, his arms flailing, and complain, My ceiling is cracking, my lights and fans are shaking... My wife has got a splitting headache! We would laugh when he left and tease her mercilessly.
But nothing got her spirits down for long. No matter how tiring or unsuccessful her day may have been, she would forget it all at the sight of a beautiful sunset, smiles on our faces, or even a cheery wave from the batli bai (the woman who came collecting empty bottles).
She would laugh at herself often, especially when she recognized a pettiness of mind and soul. She was amused by how seriously people took themselves and marvelled at their preoccupation with a respectable place in society. The world isn t just what you see outside your window, she would tell us. It s so much larger, so much grander. We are just microscopic specks in the whole big scheme of things in this universe! How bogged down we get by rules, by what society wants and what people say, when in fact it s all just timepass. Enjoy the moment, even the grief. Celebrate the joy of being alive. It s so very, very easy to be happy.
This is not to say that she lived in a permanent state of euphoria. She was human. But whatever she did-living, loving, leaving, creating-she did with passion and conviction: Lead, follow or get out of your own way. To put it simply, shit or get off the pot. Be productive. And if you re doing something, do it well or don t do it at all.
Putting her memoirs together, I was surprised by how often she felt that she could have done more for Siddharth and me. How? Giving birth to children does not mean that your life is over, that you must give up on your dreams, ambitions and sense of self. Mom believed this too, and would often joke, Give birth to children and they never forgive you for it. There was no reason for her to have felt that she had failed as a mother. In an age when parenting is so mechanical, mundane and almost devoid of laughter and sharing, I thank God for having given me a mother like her. Her spirit, creativity, boundless energy and unconditional love brought joy into Siddharth s life and mine. We were fortunate to have had a mother with an incredibly open mind and the desire to share herself every step of the way.
The two things she never got over were Siddharth s suicide and an ugly experience I had with Mario Kropf, the man she had a very long and serious relationship with. When I was fifteen, Mario made sexual advances towards me. I told my mother (who was abroad at the time) all about it and left for boarding school. She wrote saying, Mario and my relationship is too deep to let something as shallow as this affect it. Of course I was hurt and felt let down. When I returned she told me that it was rotten of me to have made up such stories, that it was my devious way of getting rid of Mario because I had never liked him. I was aghast. The man had denied everything when she had asked him about it. I confronted him, and then all hell broke loose. He admitted the truth to Mom sometime later and that marked the beginning of the end of their relationship. She never forgave herself for not believing me, for being blinkered and selfish.
The birth of Aalia was a momentous event for my mother. She was right there beside me in the labour room (along with my husband Farhan, my stepmother Nikki and my best friend Sonia). She would croon to her grandchild and hold her tight to her bosom. Aalia s birth had rekindled a spark that had died after Siddharth s suicide. She would creep into my room early in the morning and carry newborn Aalia off to sing to her, photograph her and play with her.
When Aalia was four months old, I took her to Nrityagram for ten days. The girls there said that they hadn t seen Mom so happy in a long time. Every morning I would wake up to find grandmother and granddaughter clinging to each other and swinging on the jhula outside the room. Aalia brought back hope into Mom s life. Despite her doctor s warning, she announced her comeback as a dancer. She was going to dance solo on stage after a gap of seven years. Little Aalia was the chief guest at the programme and lit the inaugural lamp. It turned out to be Mom s last public performance.
I have yet to meet someone more loving and generous than my mom. She wanted nothing for herself. She never bought herself fancy clothes or jewellery. Despite the fact that she was hu