Timepass: The Memoirs of Protima Bedi
A candid memoir by someone who dared. In a society where women had to struggle for everything, Protima did it all. She did not spend her time fighting men. Instead, she did her own things. She created her own tiny world rather than asking some one to accommodate her in his.
One word that comes immediately to mind when I think of her is 'Bold.' This aspect of her personality comes out most fiercely in the memoir. For instance, very late in life she started learning Indian classical dance. In order to excel in such an evolved Odissi dance form, one must start learning it as soon as one begins to walk. Protima started late and yet she mastered the dance form and became its exponent. Later in her life, she established a successful school called 'Nrityagram'– one of its kind in India. I could not think of any other dancer male or female who just on the strength of will-power and dedication mastered the craft. She defied the popular the popular stereotypes about how, when, and where one should learn Odissi.
She had lived her life in full public glare. She was the true child of 1960s. She dabbled in modeling, ran naked on the beach, gained a notorious reputation in the country for doing everything that a woman should not do. That was the time when few women would wear anything but full-length saris, including actresses and models. Now her running naked at the beach might seem like a publicity stunt– which it was– but it needed enormous courage to do so then. Being an intelligent woman, she knew what that might mean – or could lead to – in a conservative and religious country like India. She pulled the whole thing off rather well.
Again that recklessness, honesty, the burning desire to break free were seen in almost everything she did in her life. There was nothing shoddy or secretive about her. She married the gorgeous model Kabir Bedi. While she was still wedded to him, she felt drawn to her German neighbor (Kabir was always away; he was having a fling with another actress, Parveen Babi, at that time). When Protima got pregnant, she told Kabir that she did not know who the father of the child was. They divorced (the child was Kabir's, though). I do not know how many women– and men as well– go about their lives with such blatant honesty.
Another word that describes her is intelligence. One lives on this planet for such a ridiculous duration of time, so why not live life fully. Life is too short to indulge pettiness, lies (and to use missiles for peaceful purposes). I guess it was Protima's intelligence and self-belief that made her live the life she lived. Of course, that comes with risks which she never feared.
In popular Indian imagination, she was not a 'good woman.' Someone who died young in an accident as if paying for her sins, for transgressing every sacred line, for being everything that one should not be. But if one looks at her life and sees the sort of things she did – both publicly and personally– one sees that she has all those virtues (truthful, honest, innovative, artistic) that any sane society wants its people to imbibe. Unfortunately, when the brave few truly embraces such virtues, the same society fails them.
One word that comes immediately to mind when I think of her is 'Bold.' This aspect of her personality comes out most fiercely in the memoir. For instance, very late in life she started learning Indian classical dance. In order to excel in such an evolved Odissi dance form, one must start learning it as soon as one begins to walk. Protima started late and yet she mastered the dance form and became its exponent. Later in her life, she established a successful school called 'Nrityagram'– one of its kind in India. I could not think of any other dancer male or female who just on the strength of will-power and dedication mastered the craft. She defied the popular the popular stereotypes about how, when, and where one should learn Odissi.
She had lived her life in full public glare. She was the true child of 1960s. She dabbled in modeling, ran naked on the beach, gained a notorious reputation in the country for doing everything that a woman should not do. That was the time when few women would wear anything but full-length saris, including actresses and models. Now her running naked at the beach might seem like a publicity stunt– which it was– but it needed enormous courage to do so then. Being an intelligent woman, she knew what that might mean – or could lead to – in a conservative and religious country like India. She pulled the whole thing off rather well.
Again that recklessness, honesty, the burning desire to break free were seen in almost everything she did in her life. There was nothing shoddy or secretive about her. She married the gorgeous model Kabir Bedi. While she was still wedded to him, she felt drawn to her German neighbor (Kabir was always away; he was having a fling with another actress, Parveen Babi, at that time). When Protima got pregnant, she told Kabir that she did not know who the father of the child was. They divorced (the child was Kabir's, though). I do not know how many women– and men as well– go about their lives with such blatant honesty.
Another word that describes her is intelligence. One lives on this planet for such a ridiculous duration of time, so why not live life fully. Life is too short to indulge pettiness, lies (and to use missiles for peaceful purposes). I guess it was Protima's intelligence and self-belief that made her live the life she lived. Of course, that comes with risks which she never feared.
In popular Indian imagination, she was not a 'good woman.' Someone who died young in an accident as if paying for her sins, for transgressing every sacred line, for being everything that one should not be. But if one looks at her life and sees the sort of things she did – both publicly and personally– one sees that she has all those virtues (truthful, honest, innovative, artistic) that any sane society wants its people to imbibe. Unfortunately, when the brave few truly embraces such virtues, the same society fails them.
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