New Delhi: Model-turned-actress Pooja Bedi recently opened about her mother and famous Odissi dancer Protima Bedi's death back in 1998 just before turning 50. In an interview with Subhash K Jha for SCREEN, Pooja Bedi also shared that her mother’s body was never found after the tragedy.
Pooja Bedi On Mom Protima Bedi
She told SCREEN, “There are so many regrets about her leaving the planet before she even turned 50. There is so much that I wish I had done with her. But she was a woman who lived life on her terms. She lived the way she wanted, and she literally died the way she wanted.”
Adding more, she said, "She always said she wanted to die out in nature and, you know, be one with nature. At the end of this beautiful, glorious life, she didn’t want to be pushed into some crematorium with a mock ceremony of her ashes being put in the Ganga. She wanted to die out in nature; that was going to be a grand finale. And that’s exactly the way it panned out. Her body was never found. You know, it was one with the universe, one with the earth."
How Protima Bedi Died
She died on August 18, 1998 in the Malpa landslide, near Pithoragarh. Her remains and belongings were recovered after several days, along with seven other bodies found in the landslide.
In 1997, Protima's son, Siddarth died by suicide while he was studying in North Carolina, reportedly. Soon after the tragic incident, she announce retirement and changed her name to Protima Gauri.
About Protima Bedi
Protima Bedi had started working as a model by the late 1960s. In 1974, she streaked during the daytime at Juhu Beach in Mumbai for the launch of the Bollywood magazine Cineblitz. Later she took up Odissi dance a year later and built the free dance gurukul, Nrityagram in Bengaluru in 1990.
Protima met Kabir Bedi during her modelling career and soon moved in with him. She married Kabir and had two children, including Pooja Bedi. They separated in 1974.
