Udaya Tara Nayyar: Parveen Babi was liberated to an extent but not cheap or exhibitionist

It was Director S Ramanathan who directed her starrer Rangeela Ratan who first mentioned to me that all was not really well with Parveen. The educated and worldly wise director noticed that she was not quite herself at times. He found her hallucinating at times and lost in a world of her own. He knew I was rather friendly with her and he politely tried to find out from me if I had also noticed vagaries in her behavior. Of course I hadn’t. I always found her warm and friendly and affectionate. I remember meeting her one late evening at a studio when I was expecting my daughter and I was ambling around the studio with a prominent baby bump. She rebuked me for working in that condition and insisted that her driver would drive me home in her car. She had brushed aside all my excuses and said firmly: “if you really wish to be my friend do as I say”.