Parveen Babi was once in a relationship with filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt. The actor was battling mental health concerns as well at the time, but since this was back in the 1970s, she was never formally diagnosed. In a recent interaction, Mahesh recalled Parveen’s final days and how, despite her mental health struggles, she couldn’t distance herself from the limelight.
During an appearance on The Himanshu Mehta Show, he said, “Prior to coming to this interview, I was writing about her final spiralling into what is called madness. All attempts were made to make her see that once she had that kind of breakdown, there’s no way she should try and fit herself back into this fiercely competitive space. She should have withdrawn, as she had a physiological vulnerability. But I think once you have tasted this business, the high of the arc lights, it’s very difficult to turn your back on it. But what happened to her was an unimaginable tragedy.”
In the same interaction, Mahesh said that he still remembers Parveen’s words clearly: “Darr lagta hai (I feel scared).” He also shared that though it was a glamorous side that she showed the world, at heart, she was a simple woman. He said, “Behind closed doors, she was a simple woman from Junagadh, Gujarat, who wanted to put oil in her head and cook food at home. But the clothes she used to wear were very glamorous, so that she looked like a superstar. But on the inside, she was a simple girl.”
In a previous interaction with BBC News Hindi, Mahesh spoke about witnessing Parveen’s “mood disorder” and her eventual “collapse.” He said, “I saw her go through her collapse. I went through it with her. And when you see someone breaking down in front of you… I saw her leave in the morning for her shoot with her makeup on. But when I came back in the evening, she was shivering and sitting in a corner like an animal. She kept saying, ‘Someone is going to kill me.’ She was suffering from schizophrenia,” he said.
Mahesh admitted that he tried “a lot to help her out” but “such kind of diseases take a toll.” “When that relationship collapsed, it ended on a painful note,” he said. Parveen Babi passed away in 2005.
