 Hi, good evening, good morning, good afternoon, wherever you are joining us from. My name is Abhijit Bhaduri, I work as a leadership and talent coach, and I'm the author of a book called Dreamers and Unicorns. But today, I have for you a person who's a little hard to describe in one single sentence. I mean, typically, you know, what I do is I say, today my guest is an entrepreneur, today my guest is a VC, today my guest is this. Now, the person I have on screen with me is really hard to describe because if I were to think about it, he's done radio, then he's done television, then he's done, you know, stage, he's acted in movies in Bollywood, then he went on to Hollywood, then he went on to Italy did series, which was a runaway hit, he's, you know, and now, if there was one thing where I think I had a little bit of an age which was writing a book, he's written a book as well. So, without any further ado, I want to welcome Kabir Bailey to the studio today. Thank you so much, what a delight to have you here. Kabir, how do you introduce yourself? I mean, I just really don't know how to introduce yourself. Thank you Abhijit for that very wonderful introduction. How do I describe myself? Well, having written a book on my life, I'd say, I'm a guy who's lived a tumultuous life and lived to tell the tale. It's been a hell of a journey and I have grown through it, I've learned through it, I've experienced a lot, I've shared a lot, I've suffered a lot, I've had enormous triumphs and tragedies. So, how do you describe a life well lived or a life fully lived with all the complexities of Sara's existence? I want to start when I read your book, one of the things that struck me was, and which I wasn't aware, was that maybe you should have put a little more time talking about your work on stage on the radio. Of course, there is a phenomenal episode of how you interviewed the Beatles on that. What did it feel like when you came face to face with, clearly they were everybody's hero, the Beatles were huge. And what did it mean to sit across the sofa, talk to them and what was it like? It was like being in Alice in Wonderland. I was walking on air because I used to freelance with All India Radio in Delhi as a way of paying for my college fees. The family didn't have a lot of money so I had to work my way through college. And I was a crazy Beatles fan and when the Beatles came into town on a stopover I said I'm going to get to them and I went to my boss and I said please allow me to interview the Beatles, they laughed at me, they said the whole town is trying to get there, what are you going to do? I said give me a tape recorder, let's see what I can do. So I got this tape recorder, I went there and while the whole Delhi Press called looking for the Beatles, I hunted down their manager Brian Epstein and how I conned him into letting me interview them is a story worthy of telling which I've told in the book, I don't want to get into too many details right now but basically I pressured him saying it's a government request and he wanted to do it first but when I reached him he couldn't do it and he walked me across to the Beatles suite and said boys do me a favor, give this chap an interview and there I was in with the Beatles with the four gods that I worshipped and you know for a moment I almost forgot all the questions I wanted to ask them it was just surreal, it was absolutely the stuff that dreams are made of for a cub reporter who was a crazy fan of the Beatles and I had a wonderful conversation with them which again I have reported in the book and touched on some pretty dodgy issues as well including the use of drugs and that interview was important to me for two reasons, one is I met the Beatles but more importantly it was a transformative moment in my life because the way All India Radio treated that interview and eventually even taped over that interview because they said we don't have money for tapes we have to use it for other programs disillusioned me to such an extent that I said I've come to the end of this road I've got to move on, I'm leaving and I left Delhi and I came to Mumbai to become a director and joined advertising, worked in advertising for five years went on to the stage joined Bollywood from Bollywood on to Italy and from there on to Hollywood so that transformative moment was the interview with the Beatles and I always say that you know life is very strange the smallest choices that you make can have far-reaching consequences whether you turn left at a road and meet somebody who gives you the job of your lifetime or you turn right at that road and we run over a car you don't know what each road may lead to and every single decision you take along the way is something that affects you deeply far more deeply than we realize at the time you think it's just a casual thing turn left or right, it can change your life so the important thing there is to be able to recognize opportunity know why you're making that left or right turn and hopefully if you're doing it for the right reasons it'll pan out for the best of your development as a person and as a professional Fantastic, you know when I read your book the book is stories I must tell you know it's right there behind me as you can see and you know one thing I felt was I must tell you that my first impression of you was listening to the song in Lumiere at the Red Fort in Delhi you know so when you have the backdrop of the Red Fort you're sitting there and you actually have a fabulous, fabulous, fabulous narration and I know that you were part of it and I said wow who's got that voice and then of course you know and here I am talking to this man and there are people right now who are you know the listeners were saying I wish I had that voice so really was that fun to do I mean the song in Lumiere at Red Fort I have done a lot of Sunil Lumiere and in fact I did the voice of Shah Jahan when they first did the Sunil Lumiere in Red Fort then when they revised it and he worked at night to show then I did that again but I have a strange relationship with Shah Jahan because not only have I done him in the Sunil Lumiere in the Red Fort I have played him in the film by Apoor Khan called Taj Mahal an eternal story and I played him on stage at the Luminato Theatre Festival in Canada which is the most prestigious arts festival in North America so this relationship with Shah Jahan is inexplicable but has been there with me and I grew up in Delhi so I was surrounded by these incredible creations of his the Jahan Masjid, the Red Fort and Shah Jahan was always in my consciousness so there's some kind of relationship which I can't put my finger on that exists from that time till now but it has been very much part of my life at many important junctures. You talk about getting starstruck by the Beatles and how old were you when you first met the Beatles? All of 20 years old. And today when you see a starstruck 20 year old coming out and sort of getting tongue-tied talking to you what is your reaction, how do you sort of respond to that? Yeah, there's nothing wrong with being starstruck it's nice to be starstruck to look up to somebody to look up to people who've taken you into an experience that thrilled you, that gave you memories to remember when I did the role of Sandra Kan in Italy and got the incredible acclaim that made me a star across Europe I realized that the role I had done had touched millions of people's lives in some profound ways and I can't take the whole credit for that I was the actor but somebody wrote that score, somebody wrote that story somebody wrote the screenplay all of which conspired to become a huge hit and I happened to be getting all the glory because I played the iconic character of Sandra Kan so I don't think there's anything wrong with being starstruck I think it's wonderful because it touches people you know there's one very funny thing I noticed that even though I may not be the biggest star in India but when people meet you at an airport and they come up to you it's not just you they're coming up to you represent or I represent to them at that moment Bollywood and Bollywood is what has excited their lives given them dreams, given them moments of wonder and by coming to me and shaking my hand they're touching a piece of Bollywood, it's not just me I wish I could take all the credit the institution that I come from or that I began my career with that actually creates that sense of wonder and them being starstruck I want to sort of rewind a little bit and talk about your parents you know your parents were unique in many ways and what I thought was that the narrative which is there in the book which I was very fascinated by was you know you almost had a parallel track through a number of milestone events in India's history I mean they certainly had a part what struck me as interesting was your father met your mother in Oxford and she was British and they must have sort of caused a lot of angst out there because it wasn't the most common thing for an Indian man to marry you know so talk to me about the fact that your family had a very close time with politics multiple figures you know Mahatma Gandhi and all that mentioned beautifully in your book I really enjoyed that but what did it mean to have parents who were like that talk to me about that you know above all my parents were idealists now picture this there is an Indian man and an English girl who meet in Oxford they are united in their idealism the idealism of the times which is inspired by Gandhi and Tagore and professors like Harold Lasky that talked about the betterment of others the importance of uplifting the less fortunate etc and felt they were committed to India's independence so coming back to India as Oxford graduates they could have got the best jobs in India any job they wanted with those qualifications yet they sacrificed it all to fight for the freedom of the country now those are different times and it was a time of idealism not just on the part of my parents but many people across the country and they were idealists with no money so the huts that we lived in Lahore literally were huts on the outskirts of Lahore three of them with no electricity, no running water where all these leftists and communists would gather people that became very famous later like Harikrishnan Singh Swajit, Gyanizel Singh who became president Inder Gujral who became prime minister Hafiz Jalandri who became poet Larry de Pakistan Sheikh Abdullah who became the ruler of Kashmir so there was this atmosphere of pure passion saying we've got to achieve independence and giving their lives for it my mother was a handpicked Satyagrahi of Mahatma Gandhi and led the demonstrations in Darababa Nanak which is our family home down in Punjab and was arrested by the British and imprisoned for it even more so because she was British and fighting against the British so these people were and I said these people I've talked about a kind of movement that was happening people that really sacrificed their lives for the country and yet my parents weren't the kind of idealists that would did it for political reward even after independence when many of them did reap the rewards of politics but my parents idealism continued my mother was working in the refugee camps in Kashmir where all the refugees of Kashmir war between India and Pakistan were gathered my father helped write the constitutional Kashmir at the time which gave land to the tillers even after they left Kashmir they changed completely but their idealism didn't change my mother became editor of social welfare the government magazine she discovered Buddhism went on to become the highest Buddhist nun in the world my father had his epiphanies he became a new age philosopher in Italy I'm saying this all in brief because I possibly can't give you all the wonderful nuances of conflicts of that decision but these were people that even though their methods changed their causes changed but the idealism within them remained constant so what I learned from them was firstly the power and ability to transform your life and secondly that even though you transform remain true to your essential being that essence must not change that belief in yourself and your values must not change the outer forms can change the expressions can change but in all your transitions be true to your inner self when you talk about your parents and let me ask you a hypothetical question you've done a number of different things in your life you've got a number of awards and everything which one do you think your parents have felt really proud of of all the things that you have achieved well you know obviously I can say the stardom in Italy being knighted by the Italians the kind of success that they saw but given who they were I think they'd be most proud of the things I do at a philanthropic level there's a charity called Care and Share Italia which takes slum children in Andra and Telangana from the slums looks after them, educates them all the way from kindergarten to university taking care of all their needs I find that very gratifying to transform the lives of poor children this way in Italy because I've always tried to use my relationship with Italy to further enjoy Italian understanding the other is Sitesavers India which again has given millions of people in India the gift of sight and I don't say millions in a metaphorical way they performed over 5 million surgeries free of cost in 108 districts in India so Sitesavers again is a cause that I believe in I ask people to support them here in the same way that I ask people in Italy to support care and shares I think my parents would be most proud of those acts of reaching out for the benefit of humanity above all my worldly success and acclaim Kabeen, you know I want to take a minute to just welcome all the people who've joined us a little late I will see a number of responses thank you for joining us and I am talking today to Kabeer Bedi who as I said right in the beginning I find it extremely hard to describe him just as an actor or an author because you know I really enjoyed reading his book and there were a bunch of things that came up in my head and why we are getting into this conversation is because what struck me was in my own book Dreamers in your Records I talk about the fact that you have to reinvent yourself every now and then and when you start sort of climbing the stairs of success in one particular career that's also the time when you need to start thinking about your next move so in case of Kabeer I just found it really fascinating how you sort of really manage to move from a stage, advertising stage Bollywood, Hollywood, you know right through seamlessly I'm going to talk to you about that you were saying something, sorry go ahead well you know I think it's very important to reinvent yourself as you see in my book and my life I've done that a number of times and the first thing to understand is there is such a thing as coming to the end of a road you know like when I had that experience in radio I realized I do not want to work with these people it's time to move on don't do the Robert Bruce try, try, try again business the most successful people quit all the time and they quit at the right time by leaving behind things that are wrong so all things that are out to live their utility or things that are no longer serving them so I'm not a big one on this keep trying there is such a thing as feeling that it's time to absolutely move on and I experienced that both when I was working with All India Radio the students at Stevens College in Delhi also when I was in advertising I came to a point where I said alright I came here to learn filmmaking if I have a choice either I stay in advertising and rise up the ranks and become an account director and hopefully the head of an agency or I take my filmmaking skills and go somewhere where I can develop those because initially I came to Bombay to be a filmmaker so it was time to leave advertising because I'd reached the ceiling of what I could achieve in film in advertising once that was clear and I'm and fortunately the fact that I did theatre with a great Alec Badamsi in Bombay gave me a wonderful platform the play that I did of his called Tughlaq Girish Karnad's first play in English broke all theatre records in Bombay and that led to a flood of offers which was the second thing I suddenly it's called recognizing opportunity I didn't say no no I've come to become a director they're offering me a job as an actor I'll wait till I become a director I thought no the opportunity is here to join the film industry join the film industry and then leverage your skills to become a director that's what you want I then joined it as an actor as things happened my journey as an actor continued I didn't find the filmmaking opportunities for films that I wanted to make and then the Italians came to India looking for a Sandhukan he had to be tall, athletic, bearded and a professional actor I happened to be all of the above I still had to go and audition for it now when they came to me I was pretty well known in Bombay at the time they said you must come to Rome at your cost for an audition I bristled I said I'm not some out of work actor to do what they say how dare they ask me to come at my cost but I saw the opportunity I didn't let it slide I didn't stand an ego I said I accept coming to Italy at my cost to do your audition and I did and it changed my life so opportunity is a strange thing you know opportunity doesn't always come with brass bands heralding its arrival opportunity can be a conversation overheard at a bus stop something somebody said that in my god I could do that and you follow that it can change your life so keep the antenna out to recognize opportunity that takes you in the direction that you want to go sometimes not even directly indirectly but that ability is essential as a part of your transformative process because it changes the ground you stand on it changes your reality it opens your doors to new reality when I was in Delhi the other thing I realized was that crises outpoints the power a crisis may not feel like it at the time because you think oh my god everything going wrong I don't have any money I'm out of a job I've left these people what can I do what are my options but the fact is when you close doors behind you other doors open it's like a train going down a set of railway tracks normally we were sort of on autopilot life just goes on but there comes a point where there's a fork in the tracks and at that point you can either keep rolling down the same road or you can say wait a minute there's a fork in the tracks there's three four ways I can go do I want to change tracks now this change of tracks may take you out of your comfort zone because as much as we like change the process of change is always a little painful or difficult or awkward but if we want to change and at critical moments of crises and crossroads push ourselves beyond the comfort zone to seek out another path wonders can happen because you have seen the opportunity you have realized that you can make that change the crisis that you thought was ruining your life is actually serving your life in the best possible way but you know some people would say you are a quitter because you quit advertising then you quit Bollywood then you quit Hollywood are you a quitter? no I don't think of myself as a quitter I made changes for good reasons like I said some successful people have quit things all the time when I went to Italy and had this incredible stardom what was very clear to me was that despite my incredible stardom I wasn't being inundated in the film office so I mentioned this in my book which you must read to get all the real juice and details but that's why I am asking you this it's lovely very well done so this director said to me he said Kabir we can't cast you you're a sandokan we make social films, we make comedies, we make little dramas you're kind of a sandokan walking into the film and ruining it you're in delby sandokans so I thought am I going to be a one star wonder in the country by great success it depressed me enormously then it so happened that on that visit itself I got an offer to play a very different kind of pirate a film called a black pirate which is a European character and it was shot in South America so I went with that but I realized that I had to give Italy some time in distance before they were able to see me less a sandokan and more as an actor so I said every actor in the world wants to go to Hollywood and make a success of Hollywood so I set up for Hollywood and said let's see what they did they thank you on that and of course it wasn't as easy as I imagined at all because in one sense I had been lucky in India that I had done a play that got me film offers even luckier to go to Italy and become an instant superstar all over Europe but Hollywood has newcomers auditioning against newcomers and actors that I looked up to and there were new roles being written but then again I said to myself okay so what's the opportunity here they're not writing roles for Indians they don't mind painting white actors brown what might be that they can't play I said okay firstly I'm not going to adopt the American accent I'm going to play the foreign out here and I told my agent I said look for any roles that Hollywood thinks of as foreign so the first big role I got was playing a quarek tribesman opposite Michael Cain in Ashanti I don't by any shape or form look like a quarek tribesman but it was foreign enough for them to say yes yes he's well known in Europe and play a quarek tribesman then I got the James Bond film Octopussy there I was actually playing an Indian role because they needed a strong athletic man who could be somebody who can fight James Bond through the length of the film and then the other great roles that I played which got me worldwide famous in the bold and beautiful but I played a Moroccan prince Prince Omar I'm not Moroccan but it was foreign enough for Hollywood to say cast him as a Moroccan so I played I saw the opportunity of being the foreign in Hollywood and that's what I played and that's what got me my biggest roles of course Hollywood led to all kinds of other experiences which I talk about in my book but I'll delve into them only if you ask me specifically about them you know when I hear you talk about your moving from Hollywood or any of them every transition you know for me the take away when I was reading your book was that you've played a movie which would have been a challenge or a barrier you've turned it into an advantage I mean you know so for example in Hollywood you were the outsider alright so you started playing outsider roles in some sense and I want to confirm this back to you back with you that your parents you know they sort of in some sense rebelled against racism and all of that when they were getting married you know your mother was Brit the registrar refused to shake hands with them the registrar at the Oxford Registry Office refused to shake hands with them there were signs outside boarding houses saying no dogs, Indians or collards you know it was the time of racism in Oxford which you can't imagine but it was true and they would have done terrible things to my father the Brits would be quite harsh but the problem was that he was not only a national champion, a Hammerthrow champion but he was also trained in wrestling by Gamma so their attempts to intimidate him were the great Gamma ones so their attempts to intimidate him physically ended up in great grief and they just tried to put him down in other ways, his snide comments, racist remarks social boycotts etc but the fact is they were rebels in their own way and I've been a rebel in my life too I've always challenged a lot of things in social conventions in the life that I've lived and the way that my relationships have been conducted and even in the choices of my career which are most unusual for most people when you look at your going into Hollywood did you also face a similar kind of racism and treating you as a minor actor even though you were quite a star that time when you went there was it for you because of Sandoval? I wouldn't accuse Hollywood of overt racism in my case there's no overt racism but where it happens is that in those days diversity was not an issue so roles just weren't written for Indians nobody's writing roles for Indians what roles are you going to get? today when Priyanka Chopra is there when Irfan Khan goes there when Kair goes there there are roles being written for Indians diversity has become an issue and I'm glad that we made a lot of noise at the time and as Priyanka Chopra said he paved the way for Indian actors to explore their talent globally and has lived life to the full so those were the acts of a rebel going off into this unknown territory taking unseemly risks risking everything all your finances all your built relationships behind all your fans all those things and then to complete my story I did come back to Italy with a number of many series for Italian television plus few films but I have given that gap so moving on was an act of not rejection but of renewal and in some cases coming back to revisit your territory from a point of strength when I was called back to India from Hollywood I was called back to Kulmarimang as the hero opposite Frater and that was one of my biggest successes ever in India so change and moving on and reinventing yourself is very very important and can lead to huge results but you know change is also not just a question of opportunities and moving on etc there are inner battles that we have to fight to be able to make those changes within us there are all kinds of people you and I everyone has the capacity to be a saint or a murderer a prime minister or a prostitute you know it's those aspects of us in all of us and within each person there are certain personalities that are there there's your pleasure loving self that doesn't give a damn about anything else that just wants you to have a good time there's your ambitious self that wants to work and no matter what it takes price it takes traction in terms of your personal relationships there's your romantic side you know even if you're in the draft profession you love to sing, you love to read, you love to create there are creative sides within us there are all kinds of sides and I see these sides of us almost like ministers around the table the question you have to decide is who is the prime minister which self within yourself are you empowering who's in charge is it your pleasure loving side whether you get on in life as long whether you get on in life as long it's having good time right now or whether you empower your ambitious side that doesn't give a damn about many things but just wants to get ahead and prove things to other people get more fame, get more power, get more money all these are selves empowering the right self within us is also a very important key to transformation and growth in life and also time is one of our biggest resources, we give it away too freely now there's nothing wrong you have a good time you have a good time but people make demands on your time and you give it away freely because you don't give your time enough value time is a currency you have to make all the changes that you need to make It happens when you put in the work, when you put in the time, when you actually follow through on your ideas. Otherwise, an idea is no more than the size of the cell that it occupies in your brain. An idea has to be actioned in ways that take time, energy and effort. And if you don't protect your time, you'll never get hungry because time is all you have. So protect your time is also a very important transformation. I mean, I won't say ruthless, but being very careful with your time. Have a good time, go to see movies, hang out with your yard, have a lovely party. But that can't be the sum total of your time because you will stagnate. And the worst thing in life is stagnation. What's your typical day like? What's my day like? Do you have a flex routine? Do you sort of have a really structured time or it's a combination? In the life of an actor, this constant change. If you're shooting, your schedules are different. If you're not shooting, your schedules are very different. And I've changed. What got this book written is the fact that I changed a lot of things about me. I used to spend a lot of time watching the news in the evening. I used to spend a lot of time reading newspapers in the morning with the beginning of the pandemic and my becoming clear as to how I want to tell my story. That's a story in itself as to how I finally understood how I should tell my story. Once I was clear, I started rising at five in the morning, making myself two cups of tea, sitting down at the computer, not reading papers, discontinued my papers, put in five hours of solid writing before I went to breakfast, came back, wrote like a maniac again, and then I carried on till literally just time for the evening news. Then I stopped. And then I allowed myself ways of relaxation that I like, whether it's to have a drink or to chill in some way, or generally take my mind off what I'd done all day, which was also a very important aspect of renewing your creativity. So that change of routine freed up time, freed up energy, freed up my focus to get done. Very few people believe that I wrote this book in six months, at least the first draft I hammered out in six months. Many people thought I'd worked on it for years, and in a sense I had thought about it for years, but the actual work and then took me another three months of refining, polishing, getting feedback from a few very trusted friends that I reached out to for advice. But it's amazing that my book was written in the pandemic, had been released in the middle of a raging pandemic with all the dangers that that has, and all the difficulties that has in marketing a book, but it's out there and I've been blessed with wonderful reviews, absolutely breathtaking reviews. So I'm most grateful and this is just another example of the ability to transform by making changes that allow that transformation. You can't put something in a cup unless you empty out what was in the cup before. So you have to create the space to allow new ideas, new energies, new visions, new destinations to emerge in your life. And renewing is very important, stagnation is the worst thing in the world. Are you a better actor or a better writer? How do you judge yourself? I'm not going to answer that, I'll let people decide that. Because if I say one, I damn the other, so let people decide. I want to sort of switch and say that when you've gone through a series of, from a corporate job to being a freelancer, a motivational speaker, all of that which you are doing today, when you look at that, do you see that you want to write more? Do you see you want to act more? Do you want to do more time with charity? What is it that you'd ideally want to do if you had a choice? Well, I certainly absolutely passionately loved the process of writing. I certainly enjoyed that enormously. It gave me great creative satisfaction. Also, it was cathartic for me to tell my stories with such honesty and just let the chips fall where they may. This is what happened. This is the truth, my truth. You don't get that, it's the same kind of satisfaction when you're acting because you're doing a role written by somebody else and performing. You get great satisfaction and the role is successful and you've done it in a wonderful way. But for me, writing has certainly been very successful. And also, the philanthropic things I do also give me enormous satisfaction. But I would say that at this stage, I don't have to choose. I can do all three because acting happens when it happens, writing happens whenever I want it to happen and philanthropy continues all the time. I'm going to sort of talk to you about your, is it true that when you want to become an actor, only those people who are very fond of books who read a lot can find it easier to find out what is that true? I mean, you told me, I know you read a lot of newspapers and all that you were saying, but you also read a number of books and all that. Is that something you enjoy doing? Yes, I read books. I find reading books very important because it's like having a conversation with a fine mind. And in my earlier years, I did my reading of the classics, etc. But let me say, before I talk about books that I recommend, let me just say that I found that Dreamers and Unicorns is a fantastic book. It is a book that is filled with insights and information with a deep understanding of the changing world and a clear-eyed vision of what the future holds. It is beautifully written, immaculately researched, and I think it deserves to be on the international bestseller list. So, congratulations. Wow, thank you. How nice of you to say that. Thanks a lot. Did you actually, I mean, did you have a... I read key parts of it and I speed read some parts of it because not all of it applies to my life, but you know, the whole new world and then techies are part of my existence. My son was a techie. I've dedicated my book to techies and all young professionals. That's the dedication of my book. So, these are people I care about immensely. The tech world is something I have followed very closely, but I read a lot of your book enough to know that what I said about it is absolutely heartfelt and true. So, I'm absolutely delighted that you wrote such a wonderful book and I've gained a lot from it. So, let me say, if I was to recommend books, I would of course recommend, apart from your book and my own book, I would go into the classics and say, among the classics, I'd say Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky is one of the great books. But I read books also for great enjoyment and for learning more about the universe in which I live. And I think a book called A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Ryzen is an absolutely magical book that should be read by everybody. I also love the spy genre, the John La Carré kind of books, but the best books that I've read in the spy genre is a thing called The Spy and the Traitor by Ben McIntyre. And I really recommend that heartily. Of course, I read a lot of books, page-telling books for the information that they have in them, not for enormous Salman Rushdie-like literary excellence. And so I also like the Dan Browns. I also like India's answer to Dan Brown, Ashwin Sanghi. I also love the tales of India that Amish Sabati has written and reinvented the classics. These are the books that I read for enjoyment and I must say, among them, I must come back to the fact that I really admired your book too, Cremors and Unicorns. You actually have it, how nice of you. Absolutely. If you think about your own career, is there a skill that you have which you think has been underutilized? I mean, you're really good at it, but not enough people have utilized that. What would that be? Untapped potential? You know, this is one of the first talks where I'm actually talking about the lessons implicit in my book. So I have the skill to explain the lessons in my book which are implicit in my book. I have the skill to explain it explicitly that I've just done, but it's a skill that I have not leveraged so far. But you should. I mean, you're really good at storytelling. Talking of which, what are some of the skills that if somebody wants to sort of be a professional storyteller or just maybe improve as a storyteller? What are some of those skills that people need to build and how do you grow about building those? Firstly, I think it's important to have a good sense of what a story is Secondly, know that your story is interesting and direct as interestingly as you can. And above all, be true only to what tells that story. Don't get carried away into extraneous details and names and places and events and happenings that may be very interesting to you, but are not central to the story. So be clear what the story is. Is it interesting? Tell it as interestingly as possible, cut out everything else that takes away from the story, no matter how interesting it seems. You know, it reminds me of the quote of a very famous sculptor. It's often attributed to Michelangelo who said that you take a block of marble and then remove everything which is not the statue. Precisely, he said it much better than I could possibly say. But that's the thing of a master, you know, simplify things, simplify. I don't believe in big words that you have to look up dictionaries for. I believe in telling it as simply and elegantly and evocatively as possible because what I've told is the emotion story of my life and the emotions I experienced at all these incredible turning points of triumphs and tragedies and milestones and mistakes and regrets and remembrances. All these I have shared in my book. I've given you a kind of overview of some chapters, but I can't possibly give you the experience of going through it all the way I've tried to do in my book. And which also, you know, I just thought that usually when people write, you know, their own autobiographies are notorious for being sort of sugarcoated. You know, they only talk about all what is great, all the things that was perfect. And they keep saying, I'm not perfect, but they actually portray themselves as completely perfect without flaws. Your book actually goes to the other end of the scale. You've kind of been many ways, you've been brutally honest, you've been very candid and in some sense you bear your soul. Do you really expect to have the reader to understand you in a completely different light because of the way you've written now? What was in your mind when you wrote about this? I think so because, you know, I had a choice. Either I wrote my story or I didn't. And the other choice was if I told my story, was I going to sugarcoat and tell people what a great man I was, what great achievements I had, what wonderful relationships I had, everything was hunky-dory. Or was I going to tell the truth? The ups and downs, the rises and falls, the suicides, the bankruptcies, whatever, that I've explored in my book, these are things that I chose to tell deliberately because I felt that if I didn't tell my story, who would? And if I didn't tell it the way I saw it, my truth, then that story would never be told. And I wanted my story to be told and I wanted to tell it. That's why I've called it stories I must tell. You know, there is a pretty interesting one of the comments that somebody has put there as saying that you're being very authentic and honest right here, right now as well. Thank you. Yeah, so that's something that's important. There's an interesting question come from Abba who says that, you know, when you think about the bold and experimental generation of the 70s when you look at the bold and experimental generation today, you know, 2021, what is the difference? Well, I think it's a very different time in the 70s, you know. In the 70s, even living together, the fact that Prathap and I lived together was the headline in newspaper articles, they lived together, you know. But we pushed the envelope a lot. I mean, Prathap was getting streaked and becoming just the first streaker and caused a sensation. We ended up with an open marriage, which also would be scandalous even today, I guess. But I feel today's generation belongs to a very different generation. They are not quite so high bound by the ideas of their parents or the need for conventional conformity. They are also more fluid in their relationships. They are not, you know, it's very hard to generalize because there's always so many exceptions, but they are a more open generation, open to ideas, open to experimentation, breaking of role models. None of this, you know, gender stereotypes, the woman is inferior one and the man is superior one, all that is being left behind. And I can't fully speak for today's generation because I'm not part of them. But I do know that they are pushing the envelopes in a number of ways that would have made us proud even in my generation. Brilliant. You know, we are sort of coming up towards the end of the conversation. I want to sort of go back and ask you that when you look at your career graph, you know, right from the time when you were sort of a reporter with all India Radio and then finally the superstar and now an author, sort of lots of ups and downs when you look at it. What would you say was the pinnacle? The pinnacle. If you brought your career on a graph, what would the pinnacle be? You know, I'm the eternal optimist. For me, the best is always yet to come. And so I always look forward to an even more glorious future. But certainly in terms of public recognition and the number of people that I affected and the kind of success that I saw, which was like Betel Mania all over again was Europe. So there's no question that Europe has to be considered a pinnacle of sorts. But by the same token, I was the first actor that went from Bollywood and actually made a career in Hollywood. And if you see my journey as that of a middle-class, deli boy who went on to become a major star in Europe with a career in Hollywood and Bollywood, it's not been a bad journey. In fact, it's been one hell of a ride and it's been a, as I described in my book, a tumultuous rollercoaster ride thrilling and at times equally satisfying. Oh, I would totally agree with that. I mean, it's just quite incredible. You know, I would, when I was looking at some of the photographs that you've got in the book and a fabulous set of photographs, by the way, one of the things I thought was you opened the book with the story about the Beatles, which was obviously I'm also a Beatles fan. And Beatles used to get this kind of crazy, you know, fan following wherever they went. And when I look at some of those pictures of you in Italy and all of that, I mean, you know, it was like getting mobbed all the time, you know, all the time, all the time. And it was like, that was a one person equivalent of the Beatles in many ways. You know, you've got the, you give it all up and, you know, you walk away from all of that. Do you regret it? Sometimes you think that maybe I should have hung on for another year or so. You know, it's like you mentioned, it's a strange irony that this cove reporter that interviews his idols, the Beatles, ends up ten years later getting the same kind of adulation in Europe. I didn't leave Italy because I walked away from it. I left Italy because I realized I was too identified with a character and I pushed the envelope and went on to Hollywood because that's where every actor and commercial films wants to go and make a success of it. And there I had my share of successes and failures, but I was a working actor. I did have a career there. And my sense is that, you know, the journey goes on. Even when you're down, you lift yourself up and resurrect yourself. That again is part of the joys and sorrows of life. And when I'm writing a book that gets the reviews that it's got today, from virtually every single reviewer, it's another high altogether. It's another high altogether. It's the same high that I had when I did Sandro Cat. So there are different highs and different points in life that give you equally deep satisfactions. And I'm glad to have lived many lifetimes in one life. I would totally agree with that. I mean, your book certainly gives one the feeling that here there's a person who's sort of packed in 10 different characters into one human being. And that to me is Kabir Bedi. Thank you. What will you say would be, you know, my last question for you is, if you had to sort of describe your motto, life's motto, something that inspires you or the way that you think about it in three or four words, four words. Okay, let's do that. Four words. What would be your motto? It has to be six words. The best is yet to come. That's the motto that drives me and has driven me from one continent to the other, from one profession to another, from one success to another, eventually to writing a book that has given me normal satisfaction. And I still believe the best is yet to come. I have no doubt, you know, that the future is going to be even brighter for you and wish you a lot more books. I've really enjoyed reading your book and thank you so very much. You've done a fabulous job of putting together, you know, a biography, which for once is not just, you know, the sum total of what a great person I am, but it's a very, very candidate, sometimes even a tough look at your own self and it takes a lot of courage to be able to do that. So, brilliant book. I loved it. And thank you so very much. I would really say that it's a super fun conversation. I'm sure people will read it and, you know, I certainly have it right there behind me. You know, I've kept it there myself and I really enjoyed reading it. Thank you so much. Thank you for this wonderful conversation. Thank you so much. I've greatly enjoyed talking to you and thank you for your appreciation, the support you've given me and my book and for talking to all the millions of people who follow you about my journey and as an author, I salute the book you have written because it is equally profound in many ways and will also help many lives to transform, change and evolve into something better. Congratulations to that too. Thank you. How generous of you to say that. Thank you so much, Kavir. It was lovely. Thanks a lot, listeners, viewers. Thanks for all your questions. Thanks for all your comments. You know, the ones we have not been able to sort of address here, we are going to go back and, you know, we are going to address all of them. So just don't go away. So we are going to see you there. And I have a feeling that we are going to have Kavir back on another conversation. So just stay tuned about that. And that's what we are a different kind of a platform, which is just suited for that amazing voice of Kavir Bedi. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Goodbye. Good night. Thank you. Good night. Bye. Bye.