00:00All through my life, I've reinvented myself from being a journalist in Delhi,
00:05to being an adman in Bombay,
00:07to being an actor in Bollywood,
00:09to being an international actor,
00:11to becoming a Hollywood actor,
00:13and now I've even become an author.
00:19I did.
00:20I knew Rajiv and Sanjay Gandhi when we were both in the earlier stages of schooling
00:26in a Montessori school,
00:27and they remained friends over the years.
00:30It was very interesting for me as a child
00:33to be called to the Prime Minister's house
00:37and to see them playing with their toy trains
00:40and be at their birthdays
00:43and learning horse riding in Trashpati Bhavan
00:46and a wonderful bunch of kids fooling around.
00:51I had no idea that they would shape India's destiny so decisively
00:55as they did in the decades to come.
01:00Any actor who plays any role of any importance in a Bond film
01:05becomes a person of great interest
01:08to hundreds of millions of Bond fans around the world.
01:11You become part of the Bond family
01:14and that's a very special experience.
01:16So, while the hero might be preferable,
01:19being a Bond villain is no less joyous, glamorous,
01:24or no less exciting.
01:30They had no qualms about taking a white actor,
01:33painting him brown,
01:35and giving him the role that you were best for.
01:38I adapted to this by saying,
01:40okay, I will simply play the foreigner in Hollywood.
01:44I don't have to restrict myself to Asian or Indian.
01:47And therefore, the roles that I got,
01:50one of the huge roles I got with Michael Caine
01:53in a film called Ashanti,
01:55I played a Tuareg tribesman
01:57in The Bold and the Beautiful,
01:59which was one of the biggest shows in the world
02:02in terms of numbers of people that follow it.
02:05I played a Moroccan prince.
02:07It was only in Octopussy, the Bond film,
02:10where I actually played an Indian.
02:16Yes, I was the only reporter in Delhi
02:20that got through to the Beatles
02:22when they made a stopover
02:24on their way back from Manila to London
02:26after they were ingloriously thrown out of Manila
02:29because they got in trouble with the government
02:31for not singing at the dictator's children's birthday party.
02:36So I used that vulnerability,
02:38and I said I was from the government,
02:40and I was because I was working with All India Radio,
02:43to literally pressure Brian Epstein
02:46to give me the interview
02:48with, to be in the room with the Beatles
02:50was like being in Alice and Wonderland.
02:56You're right.
02:57Bollywood and Hollywood
02:59are the two ends of the spectrum
03:01that form my career,
03:03with Europe a very strong moment
03:06of decades of glory in between.
03:10Bollywood films were my beginning.
03:13They are the ones that made me a professional actor.
03:21Because of Bollywood, I was known,
03:24and therefore, when the Italians came to town
03:26looking for the right roles,
03:28for the right role for Sandra Cant,
03:30I was the name they heard about.
03:32I got the role,
03:34and it led to huge stardom in Europe.
03:36I received more love and honor
03:39from the Italian people
03:41than anywhere else in the world.
03:43The success I had in Italy
03:44was the kind of success that actors dream of.
03:47So having the kind of success
03:49that I associated with the Beatles
03:51given to me in Europe
03:53was a feeling of total euphoria.
03:56And it led to a lifelong relationship
04:00with the Italians,
04:01at the end of which,
04:02they have given me the highest civilian honor.
04:04They made me a Cavaliere,
04:06which is the equivalent of being knighted.
04:12That journey, that took me with my mother
04:15into a monastery in Burma
04:17where I was ordained as a Buddhist monk
04:20and trained in Vipassana.
04:22And those simple backgrounds
04:26that I came from,
04:28coming from there to Maximum City, Mumbai,
04:31was certainly a heady experience
04:33because it was suddenly the experience
04:35of the big city
04:36and all the glamour it was associated with.
04:43I mean, I went through traumatic experiences
04:45with my son's suicide,
04:47with my bankruptcy in Hollywood.
04:49I mean, it's very humiliating
04:51for a celebrity to be bankrupted.
04:54But you have to find ways
04:57of rising and resurrecting yourself.
05:01All through my life,
05:02I have reinvented myself.
05:04A lot of the meditation I learned in my youth,
05:08a lot of the spiritual pinnings,
05:11underpinnings that my parents gave me
05:13through their remarkable traditions
05:16of Sikhism and Buddhism,
05:18and my own inner sense of self
05:21gave me the strength to say,
05:22no, I will fight back.
05:29Three fried eggs for breakfast
05:31make me very happy.
05:33A loving relationship makes me very happy.
05:37Giving joy to others makes me very happy.
05:41In my life,
05:42I've had the experience
05:47of being in relationships
05:51that involved mental health issues.
05:54One was, of course,
05:56my tragic relationship with Parveen.
05:58Tragic because it ended tragically
06:00and tragic because she suffered
06:01those mental conditions.
06:03Tragic also because it happened to my son.
06:07who was a bright young techie
06:10on the verge of immense success
06:12in the internet age,
06:13a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University.
06:16So, I've experienced that personally
06:21and I feel deeply for people
06:24not only who go through it,
06:26but also for the caregivers
06:28because the caregivers,
06:31in a sense,
06:32suffer as much as the caregivers.
06:35In a sense, suffer as much.
06:42Of course, telling it like it was
06:44sounds like a great idea,
06:46but it is very painful
06:47to revisit parts of your life
06:50that you'd rather forget.
06:52And I thought,
06:53let me tell it the way it is.
06:56Let the chips fall where they may.
06:58The important thing is
07:00that I had to be vulnerable,
07:03I had to be authentic.
07:04And if I was that,
07:06then people would relate to my story
07:09at a human level.
07:15Not really.
07:17I think if you're a public personality,
07:21there is a natural curiosity
07:22about the personal life of a celebrity.
07:25Because my relationships
07:27with Prathama or Parveen
07:30or any of my other wives
07:33are chapters in my book.
07:35They are not my book.
07:37My book, it comprises of my beliefs,
07:40it comprises of my battle with my son's suicide,
07:43it comprises of the extraordinary story
07:46of my parents
07:47and my brilliant and difficult years in Hollywood.
07:53My book is many things to many people.
08:00Good question.
08:01Would I still be an actor?
08:03Given all I experienced as an actor
08:06and all the rewards and satisfactions
08:08it has given me,
08:09I would certainly still be an actor.
08:12Knowing what I do today,
08:14would I have done everything
08:15I did in the past again?
08:16I don't think so.
08:18But becoming an actor,
08:20I think I would not change
08:22that decision for anything.
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