I first saw Dolly Thakore, in person, at NCPA in 2012 during TATA Lit Fest at NCPA, Mumbai. She was, it seemed like, in midst of a conversation with Anil Dharker, the main organizer of the festival or conversing with Girish Karnad (I can’t recall exactly, been almost 10 years you see!). She had her trademark red bindi on her forehead and a sturdy physique. I, in my 20s then, could not muster the courage to say ‘hello’. I just gawked at both of them in sort-of-an-awe from a safe distance for some time.
Dolly has been quite candid and honest about her life experiences of all kinds in this autobiography. She writes of her Christian, north Indian upbringing in a large, joint family, and the naughtiness of youthful, convent-schools. And the chance she got later to fly to UK many years later in the media industry, though back then it wasn’t as large an ‘industry’ as it is today. She writes lovingly about all the quirky characters she met, her first marriage, her settling down in Mumbai, then going through a divorce, and then getting into a relationship with a very well married Alyque Padamsee. She unabashedly writes of the trials and tribulations of being the ‘other’ woman, and how later another ‘other’ woman (Sharon Prabhakar) steals away Alyque Padamsee.
This book was decades in the making, as Dolly writes, and finally took lot of prodding and perseverance from her close friends to complete it. Dolly also makes clear her political views where she mentions how Advani’s views and that of BJP do not go down well with her.
A good read for someone who is interested in Dolly’s life and the countless interesting people she had in her life as either family, friends, or partners.
The title, however, “regrets, none” does have blemishes, because at times it does feel like Dolly is nostalgic or even has some regrets about the way she was treated in most of her relationships. You can see how Alyque, the doyen of Mumbai elite, was a brute when it came to treating women respectfully.
Withered Papyrus 