Mahesh Bhatt on Parveen Babi’s 20th death anniversary: “The girl who once graced the cover of Time Magazine had no one to claim her in death” 20 : Bollywood News
Today marks the 20th Death anniversary of the celebrated actress Parveen Babi. She, unfortunately, had a sad end to her life. Veteran filmmaker and producer Mahesh Bhatt spoke about the actress who was once the love of his life in a chat with us.
Mahesh Bhatt on Parveen Babi’s 20th death anniversary: “The girl who once graced the cover of Time Magazine had no one to claim her in death”
Parveen Babi died a very lonely death
Her body lay at Cooper Hospital, unclaimed. Lawwaris. The girl who had once graced the cover of Time Magazine had no one to claim her in death. A brutal paradox. A star, now a corpse in Juhu’s mortuary, unwanted, forgotten.
That’s where you stepped forward?
That’s when I stepped forward. ‘I will bury her,’ I said. I had a relationship with this woman. And once those words hit the headlines, the claimants came crawling out of the shadows, long-lost relatives eager to assert their rights. I stepped back, letting them take over.
Apologies for opening wounds that never healed. But it is the gorgeous Parveen Babi’s death anniversary.
Life hurts you before it kills you. That was Parveen Babi’s fate. Once, she was a blazing flame. Then, when mental illness struck, it snuffed her out. Darkness swallowed her whole.
Was it just her mental condition, or was it also the betrayals she suffered?
Her story was like a nursery rhyme turned tragedy—Humpty Dumpty. All the king’s horses, all the king’s men, all the doctors, all the efforts—nothing could put her back together again. With each passing year, the fractures deepened.
What was your reaction when you heard of her death?
I remember the day I heard the news. I had just stepped off a flight from Hyderabad, where I had been invited to speak at the Police Academy about the power of cinematic images in shaping public perception. My phone beeped. A message from Tanuja Chandra. A simple line: ‘Parveen Babi is dead.’ Or was she? Had she died today? Yesterday? Time had blurred around her.
She had a remarkable albeit abbreviated life
Parveen’s story was not just hers. It was Icarus—soaring too close to the sun on waxen wings, only to plummet into the abyss. Her destruction was my resurrection. It was through her anguish, through those turbulent years of the late ’70s and early ’80s that I stumbled upon the autobiographical idiom of my cinema. Without her, there would have been no me as the filmmaker I became. no arthSo today, on the day of her death, I bow my head. Thank you, Parveen. You touched my life in a way only you could. Where would I be without you?
Also Read: Mahesh Bhatt on Pritish Nandy’s contribution to Arth, “He made it happen and suddenly the film had a life”
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