Protima Bedi dies in Kailash-Mansarovar pilgrimage landslide mishap

Protima Gauri Bedi (1949-1998)

A legend through most of her life, Protima Gauri Bedi, 49, has again rocked the nation with her death in the Kailash-Mansarovar pilgrimage landslide tragedy.

But those who came to know this remarkable woman with any degree of familiarity will agree that if she could have written a script for her own final exit, she would probably have chosen just this way to go. For it has all the elements of drama and mystery that coloured her persona during her tempestuous bout with life.

Born on October 12, 1949, this is not the first time that Protima has been declared dead. In a sense, she lived with the fact of death all her life. "I'm truly twice born," she told me just last year. "A s a child, I once polished off a whole box of laxative chocolates and then proceeded to literally shit my guts out. I lost all body fluids and went into a deep coma.

The doctor pronounced me dead and they made arrangements for my cremation. Just then my mother noticed a flicker in my eyelid and proceeded to revive me. I'm thus that rare person who has her own death certificate." Only this time neither a certificate of death could be issued nor has her body been found for cremation.

In retrospect, Protima had wanted out for sometime past. She had handed over her beloved Nrityagram to those who she thought would run it well. In the past one year, she also lost her son to suicide and suffered ill-health herself. The vivacious, extrovert woman in her was beginning to look inwards. She was withdrawing from societal life and moving towards what the Hindus call the vanaprastha. In a bid to reinvent herself, once again, she had shaved her head and disposed of all her material belongings.

Her small, old Maruti car now contained all she seemed to need - five loose-fitting caftan-like dresses, a tent, some pots and pans, a small stove, some porridge, spaghetti, spices and salt. The mountains seemed to exert a strange fascination over her. During this time, she made at least six camping trips to the Himalayas, looking for something which she herself could not define. Always the unpredictable woman, she often changed the course of her life with no qualms and emerged in a new avatar.

Protima first hit the headlines for celebrating her youth and sexuality by streaking on Juhu beach as a young model in the late '60s. That was also the time when she started India's first disco, Hide Out, married Kabir Bedi and gave birth to two children, daughter Pooja and son Siddharth. Then she tired of it all. One evening, she inadvertently walked into an Odissi recital and instantly found what she believed was her true vocation: to be a classical dancer.

At 28, this was not the simplest of ambitions to fulfil. But with dogged persistence she pursued and won the blessings of the great Odissi guru Kelucharan Mahapatra and within a short period became one of the most popular dancers of that form. But Protima was nothing if not intelligent and dispassionately self-critical.

She soon realised that despite the fact that she had all the dance organisations vying to book her, she was not a great dancer. She had begun too late, her grasp of tradition and languages was weak and her knowledge of music was wanting. But classical dance had taught her two vital secrets of life: to be able to focus and to be able to surrender. So she decided that even if the serene beauty of Odissi was beyond her reach, she would make it possible for talented youngsters to achieve that goal.

In the following decade, all her time, energy and passion were solely devoted to setting up Nrityagram, a modern-day gurukul, 28 km from Bangalore. With her characteristic drive, she begged, cajoled and bullied all her varied and numerous contacts to chip in and help her realise her dream. Within five short years, Protima was touring the world with her band of trained young Odissi dancers from New Delhi to New York. She was now Gauriamma, the patron of true talent.

But life is hardly ever simple and with the Nrityagram experience came the inevitable disillusionment with the romantic notion of the guru-shishya parampara that she had so naively espoused. She now realised that even the seemingly idyllic island of classical dance and music was rife with hypocrisy and double standards. Besides, the project had run its course and ceased to excite her. Ever the passionate woman, Protima tended to lose interest if things did not pose a challenge.

It was time for yet another change of course. Meditation, the Himalayas and questions of existence were what interested her now. "If you've figured out nature," she said to her friend, filmmaker Meera Diwan, the day before setting out on her ill-fated pilgrimage, "you have figured out life." Only this time, Protima was perhaps buried under the magnitude of her own quest.