Kabir Bedi talks about the women, who came, saw and ruled his life. Farhana Farook is awed by his penchant for falling in love again and again.
When I send a message to Kabir Bedi, I get a courteous reply almost immediately. And from then on his young companion, Parveen Dusanj takes it further. She gives me an appointment, mails me his details and coordinates the entire interview. When I go over to his house, she plays the affable hostess. While we converse, she moves in and out of the drawing room, sometimes to get him brunch, sometimes to answer a call….till she finally settles and raptly listens to her man talk about the women he loved and lost…
He has been acting for three decades, across three continents, in three mediums and has survived three divorces. Kabir Bedi declares he has ‘marched to the beat of a different drummer’. Presently in India, the 63-year-old actor is looking forward to his film Kites and another with Tigmanshu Dhulia. “India matters to me the most in the world. Even when I was working in Hollywood or Europe, I bore the trouble and expense to keep visiting India. I love the Italians for the love they still give me (after the superhit series Sandokan). I am better known in Italy than here. But India is home. There’s also a spiritual connect. Like my mother (she became a Buddhist nun for the past 15 years of her life) would say there’s an anand in India which you don’t find anywhere,” says Kabir as he bites into the toast that Parveen has served him.
Though his foray in Hindi cinema didn’t really stir the industry, it was the Sandokan (1977) saga — the Italian-German-French TV series aired through Europe — that became the watershed of his career. Kabir as the romantic Asian pirate during British colonialism had women going hysterical — with some even insisting that he autograph their thighs. “Sandokangave me the success one could only dream about. It’s a legacy that lives on. There were times when I ran across the top of cars to escape fans in Rome and Venice. I can’t expect to replicate that kind of success at this age but there are projects being developed around Sandokan. Soon you may see an older Sandokan who battles with the sword as his mind,” reveals Kabir who also counts playing Prince Omar Rashid in the series The Bold And The Beautiful and villain Gobinda in the Bond film Octopussy as other high spots.
Ruing the fact that he never hit it off as the desi hero, Kabir blames himself for it. “I came from a western background. I didn’t speak good Hindi. I wanted to be perceived as a serious actor. So, I refused to sing and dance. That was a mistake. I should have been more flexible. I paid the price for it,” he says. While Kabir’s western looks enabled him to play characters belonging to different nationalities — from a Russian, German, Afghan to an Iranian and even a South American in several projects abroad, in India, the Adonis look sometimes became a bane making the heroes insecure. “I was dropped from a few projects on the insistence of the leading man. But that’s part of the business. Given the fact that I kept travelling abroad, I am grateful that the industry had roles for me. I never ever let any one down. I would fly down at my own cost and complete my work.”
But more than anything else it was Kabir’s ‘born free, live free’ bohemianism, which guzzled newsprint. In the 70s, Kabir with his late wife Protima Bedi (died in a landslide in 1998) puffed away norms to become the flower power couple. “Both Protima and I were rebels. We broke convention when we started living together. It was an age of social revolution. There was a new consciousness. For the first time in history people were demonstrating for peace. New music was being played – the Beatles, the Stones. There was the introduction of the pill, which liberated men and women from traditional fears. As Albert Camel said, ‘It’s the rebels within society that make it dynamic’ and Protima and I wanted to be among them.”
And while the freedom celebrating duo, after two children Pooja and Siddarth, divorced each other, Protima apparently never got over Kabir. Years later, her memoirs Timepass, often dubbed as her ‘grudge pad’, expressed her angst and affection for Kabir. “Even after our separation, Protima made no secret of her desire to get back with me. This was very threatening to the women I later married. So I was forced to create certain boundaries and respect their wishes. But the fact remains that Protima and I had a very special relationship. And whatever one was able to express externally or not (as I was married or in another relationship), there was a feeling of being very close. We were always in touch as there were the children. We may not have worked as husband and wife with all those ideas of open marriage falling apart but we fulfilled our duties as parents. For various reasons we couldn’t get back together but we got back together in spirit towards the end of her life.” He singles out her influence over him. “She was such a force of nature, such an uncontrollable spirit! In terms of our attitude to the world, sexuality, ways of living – we grew up together.”
With second wife Ixchelle (earlier called Susan Humphrey) Kabir developed a great understanding of America. “She was into a lot of new age philosophies that fed my curiousty about alternate belief systems.” About third wife Nikki Bedi he says, “With Nikki, there was a whole sense of Englishness, a certain vocabulary, a way of being that was very attractive and instructive!”
Given his radical spirit what motivated him to yield to marriage after each divorce I ask. “In retrospect I ask myself that too (laughs). My reasons were as diverse as the women I married. There were just different impulses that made you go for it. You feel so deeply for somebody, you feel it’s forever. You want to sanctify it. You find that person so wonderful you can’t imagine life without her. And sometimes you do things in haste. But right or wrong, I fulfilled all my responsibilities,” he says. Kabir continues, “They were not one night stands, they were marriages that lasted — five years in Protima’s case, nine years with Exchel and 12 years with Nikki. Even though they didn’t last a lifetime, they were a part of my life.” Yet the pain was as relentless after each break-up. “There is no such thing as a painless parting. Every break-up represents the failure of a dream – it affects your family, you friend circle and the whole web of relationships that were built around that marriage,” he shares.
I then remind him of the most ‘intense’ relationship in his life – that with the late Parveen Babi and why he didn’t marry her. “I can’t go into all the reasons I couldn’t marry her. But the divorce from Protima took a very long time and she was convinced that Parveen was not the right one for me.” While Parveen did accompany Kabir to Italy during the Sandokan whirlwind and even lived in London with him, one fine day she decided to return to Bombay. “She saw herself as an outsider. She wasn’t a star there, while I was. She was still getting offers from Bombay. For her own sense of security she returned. I did get her the lead role in the sequel Sandokan Rises Again but she ditched the project. When I asked her when she would be returning for the shoot, she said ‘I am not coming back’. That was a double blow. At the personal level, I felt rejected and at the professional level, Parveen abandoned the film at the last moment. Consequently, they had to cast an inappropriate actress and the project suffered,” he relates. “So yes, Parveen dumped me and that’s the truth of the matter.” Years later the estranged lovers did meet. “I met her many years later when she came to London to shoot a film and it was a very nice meeting. Then I met her at Protima’s funeral service. It was very gracious of her to come. And then some years later, she passed away and I attended her funeral,” he says softly.
Though Parveen’s mental illness became public knowledge much later, Kabir reveals that the indications were evident even then. “Since, I lost my son Siddarth to schizophrenia; I am now familiar with the disease and know certainly that all the symptoms were present in her. That made the relationship very, very difficult (because the person went out of control) but, in a strange way, made it very close. She had an extraordinary sensitivity to things, which may have worked against her adversely, but there was a highly intelligent and sensitive human being I interacted with. There was a fierce attachment, a fierce clinging, and a fierce desire to be sheltered from the world. And for many years I was able to be that for her. But at the end her fears of living in the West were greater!” reveals Kabir adding nevertheless, “Parveen – brought out the protector in me.”
Among several ruptured relationships the loss of his son Siddarth in 1997 was irreversible. “Siddarth was teaching computer science at Chapel Hill in North California while studying for his masters there when schizophrenia struck. For a boy who was at cutting-edge institutes to be suddenly inflicted with this mental disease was the darkest hour of my life. He chose to go at a young age because he saw no hope. He would say, ‘What do I do all day? I see movies they don’t make sense to me, I eat food it holds no taste for me, nothing gives me any joy, I am unemployed’. He was too bright not to know that he would never be normal again,” he recalls.
Presently, Parveen Dusanj seems to be the pivot in Kabir’s life. “I met Parveen when I was acting in Far Pavillions at the West End. I was single and in no mood to get into a long term relationship. We met at the party after the show and got friendly. The friendship grew over months. I felt comfortable with her.” But Parveen had reasons to be ‘fearful’ confesses Kabir. “She had doubts about me. I had a huge reputation. I was divorced three times. I was 30 years older than her.” Then Kabir went to Italy to do the series A Doctor In The Family for a year and asked her to accompany him. “She was working with the British government on social issues. So she shuttled between Italy and London till she fortunately decided to join me. She has brought a lot of joy in my life. She’s more mature than me!”
Kabir is taking his time to mull over this four-year-old relationship. “I like companionship that’s why I make a commitment. When you are footloose and fancy free, you are constantly wondering whom to date next Saturday night. That’s not the lifestyle I like. There have been times when I have been to incredible places, eaten incredible food and met incredible people but there was no one to share it with. But as you grow older you look before you leap.” He looks at Parveen seated next to me and with uncontainable shyness declares, “There is a desire to marry and when we find the right time we will. My heart will never have wrinkles. I remain the eternal optimist.”
Kabir is taking his time to mull over this four-year-old relationship. “I like companionship that’s why I make a commitment. When you are footloose and fancy free, you are constantly wondering whom to date next Saturday night. That’s not the lifestyle I like. There have been times when I have been to incredible places, eaten incredible food and met incredible people but there was no one to share it with. But as you grow older you look before you leap.” He looks at Parveen seated next to me and with uncontainable shyness declares, “There is a desire to marry and when we find the right time we will. My heart will never have wrinkles. I remain the eternal optimist.”
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