Protima Gauri Bedi (12 October 1948 – 18 August 1998) was an Indian model turned Odissi exponent. In 1990, she established

Nrityagram Nrityagram is India's first modern Gurukul (residential school) for Indian classical dances and an intentional community in the form of a dance village, set up by Odissi dancer Protima Gauri in 1990. The residential school offers training in ...

, a dance school in hesarghatta Bangalore.

Early life

Protima was born in Delhi,''Time Pass: The Memoirs of Protima Bedi'', Introduction, pp. 1–2. Biographical info: "Early Years" the second of four siblings, three daughters and a son. Her father was Laxmichand Gupta, a trader belonging to a business family from Karnal district, Haryana, and her mother Reba, a Bengali. In 1953, her family moved to Goa, and in 1957, to Bombay. At age nine, she was sent to stay at her aunt's in a village in the Karnal district for a while where she studied in a local school. On her return, she was sent to

Kimmins High School Kimmins High School is a girls' boarding school in Panchgani in the state of Maharashtra, India, founded in 1898. It was founded as the "sister" school of Queen Mary School, Mumbai, providing boarding school capability for girls who could not att ...

, Panchgani, where she received her early education. She graduated from

St. Xavier's College A multitude of schools and universities have been named after St. Francis Xavier, a Spanish Roman Catholic saint and co-founder of the Society of Jesus. This page lists notable educational institutions named after St. Xavier, arranged by country a ...

, Bombay (1965–67).

Career

Modeling career

By the late 1960s, she was a prominent model. In 1974, she came into the news for streaking during the daytime for the launch of the Bollywood magazine '' Cineblitz'' at Juhu Beach in Bombay.

Dance career

In August 1975, at the age of 26, an Odissi dance recital completely changed her life when she ran into the Bhulabhai Memorial Institute by chance, and saw two young dancers giving an Odissi performance. She became a student of Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, from whom she learnt the art of dancing for 12 to 14 hours a day and faced a lot of hardship as a beginner. To perfect her dance, she started studying

abhinaya Abhinaya (Sanskrit ''abhi-'' 'towards' + ''nii-'' 'leading/guide') is the art of expression in Indian aesthetics. More accurately it means "leading an audience towards" the experience (') of a sentiment ('). The concept, derived from Bharata Mun ...

from Guru Kalanidhi Narayanan of Madras. From then on, she started giving performances around the country. Around the same time, Protima started her own dance school at

Prithvi Theatre Prithvi Theatre is one of Mumbai's best known theatres. It was built by Shashi Kapoor and his wife Jennifer Kapoor in memory of Prithviraj Kapoor, Shashi's father, who had dreamt of having a "home" for his repertory theatre company, Prithvi Thea ...

in Juhu, Mumbai. It later became the Odissi Dance Centre.

Nrityagram

, situated on the outskirts of Bangalore, became India's first free dance gurukul, village for various Indian classical dances, consisting of seven gurukuls for the seven classical dance styles and two martial arts forms, Chhau and

Kalaripayattu Kalaripayattu (; also known simply as Kalari) is an Indian martial art that originated in modern-day Kerala, a state on the southwestern coast of India. Kalaripayattu is known for its long-standing history within Indian martial arts, and is ...

. She wanted to revive the guru-shishya parampara. Nrityagram was inaugurated on 11 May 1990, by the then-Prime Minister,

V.P. Singh Vishwanath Pratap Singh (25 June 1931 – 27 November 2008), shortened to V. P. Singh, was an Indian politician who was the 7th Prime Minister of India from 1989 to 1990 and the 41st Raja Bahadur of Manda. He is India's only prime minister to ...

. The dance school has a small community of students from all parts of India, but with a common aim of dance. The Nrityagram ensemble was soon performing all over the world. Meanwhile, in 1992, Protima appeared in Pamela Rooks's English film, '' Miss Beatty's Children''. Nrityagram, created as a model dance village, was constructed by architect Gerard da Cunha. It won the Best Rural Architecture award in 1991. To raise funds to run Nrityagram, the tourist resort Kuteeram was built in 1992. Nrityagram is also the venue of the annual dance festival Vasanta Habba, which was first started in 1994 and had 40,000 visitors when it was last held in 2004. It was not held from 2005 to 2007, due to the advent of the

2004 tsunami An earthquake and a tsunami, known as the Boxing Day Tsunami and, by the scientific community, the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake, occurred at 07:58:53 local time (UTC+7) on 26 December 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of northern Suma ...

and a shortage of funds.

Final years

Protima's son, Siddarth, suffered from schizophrenia and committed suicide in July 1997 while he was studying in North Carolina. This changed the course of her life irrevocably, as in early 1998, she announced her retirement and changed her name to Protima Gauri. Soon she started travelling in the Himalayan region, starting with Leh. In a newspaper interview given in April 1998, camping at

Rishikesh Rishikesh, also spelt as Hrishikesh, is a city near Dehradun in Dehradun district of the Indian state Uttarakhand. It is situated on the right bank of the Ganges River and is a pilgrimage town for Hindus, with ancient sages and saints meditati ...

during the

Kumbh Mela Kumbh Mela or Kumbha Mela () is a major pilgrimage and festival in Hinduism. It is celebrated in a cycle of approximately 12 years, to celebrate every revolution Brihaspati (Jupiter) completes, at four river-bank pilgrimage sites: Allahabad ( ...

, she said, "I have decided to give myself up to the Himalayas. It is the call of the mountains which has beckoned me to them. And who knows what may come out of it? It is bound to be something good," Subsequently, in August, Protima Gauri set off on her pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar, and it was there that she disappeared after the

Malpa landslide The Malpa landslide was one of the worst landslides in India. On 18 August 1998 at 3.00 a.m., massive landslide wiped away the entire village of Malpa in the Pithoragarh district of Uttarakhand, then in Uttar Pradesh in Kali Valley of Higher Kuma ...

, near Pithoragarh, in the Himalayas. Her remains and belongings were recovered after several days, along with seven other bodies found in the landslide in Malpa, a village near the India-Nepal border. In her autobiography, ''Timepass'', based on her journals and letters collated and published by her daughter, Pooja Bedi, in 2000, she gives an account of her relationships and lifestyle, the birth of her dream project,

, and her eventual transition into a sanyasin towards the end of her life, when she retired from public life and wanted to explore the Himalayas.To Family and friends
Hindustan Times.

Personal life

Protima Bedi met Kabir Bedi during her modeling career. After a few months, she left her parents' house to live with him. She married Kabir and had two children - including Pooja Bedi. They separated in 1974.

Notes

References

* ''Time Pass: The Memoirs of Protima Bedi'', with Pooja Bedi Ebrahim. New Delhi, Penguin, 2000. .

External links

*
An Interview with Protima Gauri

Special feature on Protima Bedi
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bedi, Protima 1948 births 1998 deaths Bedi Protima Deaths in landslides St. Xavier's College, Mumbai alumni Odissi exponents Indian female classical dancers Bengali models Indian Hindus Performers of Indian classical dance Dancers from Delhi 20th-century Indian dancers Women artists from Delhi 20th-century Indian women artists Natural disaster deaths in India