He is instantly recognizable as Sandokan, or the villainous sidekick from Octopussy. He has worked in radio, theatre and films. And how he lays bare his life in a memoir, Stories I Must Tell.
On Saturday evening, writer Devapriya Roy drew actor Kabir Bedi into an honest and absorbing discussion at his virtual book launch, hosted by Starmark Kolkata, for which The Telegraph Online was the media partner. Roy and Bedi plunged into the theme of the book which, as he put it, plumbs “the pains and pleasures and the heart-wrenching setbacks of life” against the foreground of his adventures.
Kabir Bedi and Devapriya Roy at the virtual launch of his book, Stories I Must Tell The Telegraph
From Kashmir to Rome, Kabir Bedi has been around the world, even volunteering to be a monk for a summer in Rangoon. He also spent a year in Santiniketan. His mother, an English woman involved in India’s freedom struggle, was a great admirer of Tagore, having been moved by Tagore’s lecture in Oxford. In Pathashala, Bedi attended classes under trees, learnt to speak Bengali and sang Rabindrasangeet. He recalled fondly the music, the rangoli on the sidewalk, eating his food cross-legged in the assembly hall, and playing football in the rain.
Bedi’s association with Bengal does not end there. His parents, father Baba Pyare Lal Singh Bedi and mother Freda Bedi, met Subhas Chandra Bose in Berlin in the early 1930s, where they were trying to stay off the radar of the Nazis. They met Netaji during the same trip that Bose met his Austrian wife, Emilie Schenkl. Later in Lahore when they started a nationalist publication called Contemporary India, the freedom fighter wrote regularly for their paper.
Kabir Bedi discovered his penchant for theatre rather young and went on to be secretary of the Shakespeare Society in St Stephen’s College, Delhi. He played Casca for a production of Julius Caesar, and recounted with a chuckle the review in the college magazine – “Caesar had been assassinated twice, once by Brutus, and once by Kapil Sibal.” He admitted that he enjoyed debating as well, but that it was hard to get into the “A-team of the debating society” which was dominated by the likes of Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Arun Maira and Prabhat Patnaik.
I’ve subtitled it The Emotional Life of an Actor because I’ve told it through my emotions, so people can relate it to it at a human level… it’s the story of being human…
Kabir Bedi on his memoir
Working his way through college led Bedi to do the unexpected Beatles interview for All India Radio. The incident comprises the first chapter of his book; Bedi’s memoir does not begin at the beginning. It does not even begin in medias res, as his fans might hope. “I wanted to have people know me to, know who Kabir Bedi was, the spirit that I had, the energy I had, the drive that I had, and what it took for me to break through and get that interview with The Beatles.”
In wanting to avoid the boredom of a linear narrative, Bedi’s predilection for the short story led him to pen episodes from his life in a manner which allowed him to go back and forth in time as well as “retain the dramatic tension of each story.”
If I can be honest about myself, I can be honest about others.
Kabir Bedi on the relationships he unpacks for his readers
Devapriya Roy pointed out that he has not been afraid to talk about the lowest of lows, which takes equal prominence as the glitz and glamour of the high life. Financial failure, the loss of his son and his extraordinary relationships have been narrated with compelling candour. Roy wrapped up the book launch with a rapid-fire round, with promises of a book hamper to Bedi if he did well.
He admitted that he was not the best at rapid-fire, being prone to consider a question from various angles. And with that warning he launched, not rapidly at all, into how it’s hard for him to pick a leading lady, the missed opportunity to play Koda Dad in The Far Pavilions — a role that ultimately went to Omar Sharif — and why he prefers Twitter over Instagram.
The Telegraph
