‘I have always craved love’

In May 1982 when the late maverick adman and theatre personality Alyque Padamsee walked out of Dolly Thakorersquos life he hadnrsquot just left a void in her heart but even her home He took with him a bunch of paintingsmdashprized souvenirs as they were they had also come to embody his and Thakorersquos over decadelong relationship and the life they had built Akbar Padamsee Anjali Ela Menon and MF Husain All gone ldquohelliphow to explain to your child why the walls of his home were suddenly bare That the signs of a family could be expunged so easilyrdquo writes Thakore in her just released memoir Regrets None HarperCollins IndiaWhen she meets this writer on a rainsoaked afternoon in the same Peddar Road apartment that has been her home for over 50 years those wounds exacerbated by the bare walls appear to have long been filledDuring the filming of Gandhi with Simon Kaye Michael Stewart Rani Dubey Ben Kingsley Rohini Hattangadi Saeed Jaffrey Richard Attenborough Billy Williams November 1980Husainrsquos faceless Mother Teresa hangs below a drawing of a faceless bearded man Itrsquos a work by former PM VP Singh She was inspired to buy it she tells us after her son theatre writerdirector Quasar Thakore Padamsee reminded her that ldquoI had a thing for men with beardsrdquo On an adjacent wall therersquos an artwork of B Prabha and RK Laxmanrsquos crow a peacefullooking one created again on Quasarrsquos request because he didnrsquot like the threatening crow she had bought for her wall Behind us is Lalita Lajmi Imtiaz Dharker and many more that we confess will take us some poring over to identify ldquoI was probably among the first art auctioneers in the countryrdquo Thakore shares explaining how her collection grewIn the last 39 years these walls have become populated again crowded even with legends Itrsquos also taken all that time for 78yearold Thakore to pen her tellall She admits she first began thinking about the book right after Padamsee walked out of her life But itrsquos only in the last few years that she started putting all those manuscripts together with the help of Arghya Lahiri who has written the book along with herWith Alyque Padamsee and Quasar 1978 Pics courtesyRegrets None Harpercollins IndialdquoMy life has been quite exemplary so I did want to share itrdquo says Thakore a multihyphenate long before the word became fashionable ldquoEveryone whom I had ever spoken to told me to write down my thoughts So I began to pour my heart outrdquo She started writing this book in earnest on April 27 1998 ldquoThe acceptance I was getting for my work prompted me to talk But I didnrsquot realise how much publishing entails and the effort it takes to bring out a book Back in the day you wrote your book sent it to the press and it got publishedrdquoThakorersquos career was defined by abundance A theatre actor in school and college she went on to excel as a subeditor copywriter model coordinator radio host television newsreader casting director and auctioneer ldquoI never pursued anything All of this fell into my lap But I learnt on the way And therefore my advice to people is to never be scared take on the challenges Hard work is never going to fail yourdquo she adds Thakore reading news on televisionThe glut of celebrity memoirs this writer has read in the recent past have played very safe to the point that they start appearing to be nothing but collation ofnewspaper and magazine articles Thakorersquos memoir however is a breath of fresh airShe is brutally honest about herself her family her choices affairs and the people she has learned to love and hate She was once blacklisted from television after she announced with a smile that Indira Gandhi had been defeated in the elections All her skeletons are out of the closet ldquoI was the dark one The other onerdquo she writes in the book about the selfdoubt she experienced as a childldquoLook at the age of two I was sent off to my grandparents I met my parents only during the holidays At the time psychologically it does play on you You are not informed or educated enough but emotionally somewhere it hankers I presume it didrdquo she says of why she felt neglected ldquoThis went on for a long time I only started living with my parents when I was six Therefore I have always craved love I had very good friends and then when youth took over and the biological instincts kicked in I naturally began to want a wonderful relationshiprdquoBorn Dolly Rawson into a conservative Protestant Christian familymdashher father was in the Air Forcemdashshe had quite a peripatetic life moving between cities before going to Delhirsquos Miranda House where she was able to pursue theatre more seriously A serendipitous opportunity to work at the BBC saw her leave for London where she worked as an editorial assistant in the Overseas Information Service During this time she also got to take on Hindi to English translation work for the Central Office of Information Here she met and fell in love with Dilip Thakore with whom shersquod marry and settle in Bombay Just before the wedding Dilip got her to sign an open marriage contract a bold move for the time ldquoDilip was well read and quite evolved I think it the contract was fantastic But in real life we were like any other young couple making a life together We had our arguments toordquoItrsquos around this time that she fell in love with Padamsee who was already married to stage veteran Pearl Padamsee They were theatrersquos first couple When her affair became known she remembers being shunned by people with many not wanting to talk to her The guilt continued to weigh on her When years later Padamsee moved in with singer Sharon Prabhakar she remembers telling herself ldquoSharon did to me what I had done to Pearlrdquo ldquoMy career kept me busy I didnrsquot have the time to mourn or complain to anybody My friends Protima Bedi and Valerie Agha stood by me through all of this While I certainly did hold it against Alyque and I am still resentful about the fact that it happened it washed itself away Today we are one large familyrdquoRaising Quasar as a single mother came naturally to her They are close but not in an intimate way she admits ldquoHe was in boarding school for most of the time We talk a lot on the phone but I donrsquot know half of the things he is doing I am much closer to my friends But some I no longer have Most of them are busy playing the harp upstairsrdquo she quipsIn the lockdown she has kept herself busy moderating and judging events over Zoom She misses going to the theatre but in between reading books and watching Netflix ldquoI donrsquot really know where my time goesrdquo Most evenings she is busy with the virtual rehearsals of her upcoming digital play Turning Point by Meher Pestonji which will premiere on September 5 ldquoI am enjoying it immensely Itrsquos such a new challenge And to think I am doing this at my agehellip itrsquos fabulousrdquo