📚Book: "Stories I Must Tell"
📚Genre: Autobiography / Film / History / South Asian History / Religion / Politics
✍️ Author: Kabir Bedi
Publisher: @WestlandBooks
🎙 Hosted by: @omarrasman
🎧 Episode info:
A legendary actor whose three decade long career spans Film, Television, and Theatre alike, Bollywood superstar and international megastar KABIR BEDI discusses his 2021 autobiography "Stories I Must Tell".
🖍 Episode Highlights:
✔️ Visit to Dhaka, Bangladesh in July 2023
✔️ Ode to Rumi series
✔️ Meeting The Beatles in 1963
✔️ Parents' journey from freedom fighters to spiritual gurus
✔️ Megastardom in Europe with Sandokan
✔️ Octopussy and The Bold and The Beautiful
✔️ Parveen Babi & Protima Bedi
✔️ Future Projects
📚 Book Review 1 by @jenn_n_tonik9458:
"Stories I Must Tell: The Emotional Life of an Actor" by Kabir Bedi, was one of my favorite reads over the past year.
Kabir Bedi's memoir is a delightful gust of fresh air in the celebrity autobiography genre. His recollections and self reflection of a most fascinating life, amounts to duly justifying the title - Stories I Must Tell.
Each chapter is dedicated to a figure or experience in Bedi's life. His years with his first wife Protima, followed by his famous relationship with Bollywood superstar Parveen Babi, epitomized 1970’s most ‘liberal’ Bombay lifestyle. An open marriage or living together out of wedlock or running naked on the beach for a photoshoot in 70s India, they were creating stories for the ages.
Bedi recollects his time with Babi and her growing mental health problems with the sensitivity of one who truly loved. The passionate love affair with Babi spans over the years when Bedi discovers mega stardom in EU with the Italian pirate adventure "Sandokan". His sudden ultra stardom unfortunately marks the beginning of the end with Babi, as her challenges with mental health grow. This is a chapter for Bollywood buffs to devour, though not in the least sensationalized and written with heart and respect.
I was captivated yet again by the section on Bedi's most unusual and mystical parents. Once revolutionaries during the Indo-Pak partition, his Indian father and British mother's lives enigmatically evolve as they embark on two very distinct spiritual journeys, of becoming a spiritual healer and an ordained Tibetan Buddhist nun respectively.
Growing up with the Gandhis, interviewing The Beatles, discussing Tagore with Audrey Hepburn are among the many chance encounters or close relationships with global figures.
Yet, Bedi writes his stories with utmost humility, addressing his lowest lows, both personal (losing his son) and financial. His own spiritual journey & explaining his respect for all religions are among my favorite parts of the book.
I'd highly recommend this memoir as a generally intriguing and fulfilling read on the extraordinary life of a once ordinary Delhi boy.