Book: Parveen Babi- A Life
Author: Karishma Upadhyay
Pages: 333
Read on: Kindle
Read in: 4 hours
Plot Summary: Sensuous, glamorous and bold, Parveen Babi set the Hindi cinema screen ablaze during the 1970s and ’80s, breaking the ‘pious, nice girl’ mould of the film heroine and redefining it after her own style. On screen, she sizzled in unforgettable roles in blockbusters like Deewaar, Shaan, Kaalia and Amar Akbar Anthony – while, off-screen, her bohemian and unabashed lifestyle lit up gossip columns, and her appearance on the cover of Time magazine, a first for an Indian, created a stir nationwide. Yet, for all the sensational rumours and films her life inspired, Parveen has remained something of an enigma to generations of fans.
In Parveen Babi: A Life, Karishma Upadhyay traces the journey of a shy but ambitious girl from an aristocratic family in Junagadh, Gujarat, to a life of merciless scrutiny that comes with being in the Bollywood spotlight. Exploring with depth and sensitivity the myriad facets of the actress’s life, she lays bare little-known details about Parveen’s doomed romances, her obsession with the spiritual guide who advised her to quit films, the tumultuous years of battling mental illness and her tragic, untimely demise.
Rich with insights from the star’s friends, former lovers and colleagues, this compelling narrative captures the nuances of an extraordinary life – the highs and lows of finding fame, love and solace, and then, in the end, losing it all.
General Thoughts: If you grew up in the 80s, there was no way that you did not know who Parveen Babi was! She was the epitome of glamour and of the stereotypical "modern" girl/ leading lady in Hindi movies. She featured in a few of my favourite 70s/ early 80s films such as Deewar, Shaan and Namak Halal. However, for me (Pooja's older sister), the most defining moment that I can think of when it came to knowing a little more about Parveen Babi, than just as the pretty-modern-cool heroine, came in the year 1990.
I was waiting at my neighbourhood salon for a haircut when I spotted the most recent edition of Stardust. Since we didn't subscribe to any film magazine at home, only to Life and India Today, I never missed an opportunity to read whichever film magazine I could lay my hands on whilst at the salon. It was in this magazine that I read an interview of Parveen Babi, the famous one in which she accused Amitabh Bachchan of contaminating her makeup and adding something to her shampoo etc. I remember feeling very confused- why would he do that? I was quite young and didn't know enough about mental illness to see these claims for what they were- the rants of a mind in the grip of paranoid schizophrenia. I remember feeling sad for her because the journalist's tone was one of pity and condescension. I didn't have the language for it, but I felt she deserved some empathy and kindness because she was clearly unwell or, at any rate, very very scared.
So, when I first heard about Karishma Upadhyay's book, I was very interested in learning more about Parveen Babi and her life- how did she end up alone and so isolated from everyone? Why did she not get help for her mental illness? What about her family and friends? Did they not help? I grabbed the ebook over the weekend and buddy-read it with my sister in one sitting.
Things I Liked:
1. First and foremost, I loved the tone of this book. It's not condescending, judgemental or pitying. The writer manages to share snippets of the starlet's life- the good, the bad and the ugly- without any sensationalisation (and God knows the scope of doing that in this case was pretty high). I really appreciated the balanced take on things and the, largely, neutral tone of the narrative.
2. This book is very well-researched. The people and sources from where the writer gleans the information about Babi was fairly extensive. Family friends, old friends, colleagues, past lovers and several News articles and magazine interviews and self-written accounts by the actress make up for the bulk of the book. If there was anyone living, who knew the actress well at any point in her life, Karishma Upadhyay has interviewed them to learn more about Parveen Babi- the girl, woman, person.
3. Therefore, this book paints a very vivid picture of Parveen Babi through the years- right from her childhood in Junagadh to her teenage years at St. Xavier's in Ahmedabad to her journey via modelling into Bollywood in the early 1970s. At every stage, the author shows us Parveen as a person- not the image she came to portray or what was written about her in the magazines. We see the evolution of shy, quiet girl into the "modern", cool, glamazon that she came to be viewed as in the film industry.
4. In the same vein, the author does an excellent job of showing the evolution of her mental illness- the small signs that were always there to the big actual mental breakdowns experienced by her. We get to read about her illness from the personal accounts of close friends, boyfriends, colleagues and family as well as by the author's own hand in the form of articles that she wrote for The Illustrated Weekly. It helps build a lot of understanding of what she went through and how hard she tried to overcome her mental illness, without medication.
5. We also see how certain people exploited her struggles and trauma by not only talking about it to others in the film industry without her consent but also making a film based on her struggles with mental illness. Yes, I am looking at you, Mahesh Bhatt. Shame on you! I can never ever have any fond feelings for Arth after reading about how it impacted poor Parveen Babi!
I cannot imagine what it must have done to her already fragile psyche, to have a film that laid bare her very personal and difficult struggles for everyone to see and draw inferences about her, her character and her mental state. It made me so mad to imagine a former lover, taking deeply traumatic and personal experiences and milking them for fame and getting some sort of a free pass at doing so, in the name of art. It's not art, it's not cinema, if it comes at the cost of someone else's tragedy. And the thing that really, really irks me is the total lack of consent involved in this entire process. From what I understand, at no point did Mr. Bhatt take Babi's consent for making said film. He only told her not to watch it, since she wouldn't like it or be upset by it. So what?! He gave her some kind of a trigger warning for her own life story? Really?
When Arth was released, Babi was still very much working actively in Bollywood and she was trying to re-establish herself as a bankable leading lady. So, to have this film paint her as this unstable wrecker of homes was in such poor taste. And it undid one and half years of diligent effort put in by Babi to be seen as a reliable, professional, bankable leading lady after a very public and talked about mental breakdown.
Just no.
And to think this man went on to make two other films about her.
It's not OK.
I get that the time he spent with her and the experiences he had were a part of his story too, and perhaps those were his experiences to share as well. However, it still reeks of exploitation and opportunism and a desperate attempt made by a man to milk the struggles and tragedy of a vulnerable woman to prop up his failing career.
6. The book also tries to piece together some parts of the five years in the late 80s when Parveen had fallen off the radar of her family and friends. What little we do come to know is heartbreaking. The last few chapters of the book, the ones dealing with her last years were also heartbreaking and poignant, and very well done.
7. As someone who's a trained Clinical Psychologist and has worked in psychiatric wards, it was especially hard to read about how rapidly Babi's mental illness devolved and derailed her life. Schizophrenia is often made out to be this big bad wolf of an illness, a death sentence, a point of no return and that's not always true. Babi's biggest tragedy perhaps is her own unwillingness to trust modern medicine and doctors. Her refusal to take her medicines made her illness an all-consuming beast. Her life, her career, her relationships were all destroyed by the hellfire of her mistrust of medical science. Her life could have been so different had she let her loved ones get her proper help to battle her illness.
Rating: 4/5
I highly recommend this book and I enjoyed it immensely.
So good!
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