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Regrets, None: A Memoir That Bares It All | EXCERPTS

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07.09.2021

In Regrets, None, veteran theatre personality Dolly Thakore brings alive another era – the glitz, the glamour, the struggles. She speaks candidly about love, sex, infidelity, motherhood, commitment, the ecstasy and the heartbreaks. Read excerpts:

I do wonder about some things, though. Those moments that, in hindsight, were pivotal. Points where the river changed course.

What if I’d gotten on the flight back to London?

What if I’d never met Alyque?

What if I’d never had Quasar?

And then I think, no. Am I glad that some of those things happened? No. I wouldn’t want anyone to live through some of those things.

But I got my child out of it.
Pain is a scar. It is a sign of the wound.
The wound, says Rumi, is the place where the light enters.
The scars are what remind me that I was there, that I fought for every particle that comprises the whole of my life.

I’m aware that we’re in the final act. Somewhere, and it could be ten, fifteen years from now or it could be much sooner, the final curtain is ready. We’re running through the lines of the last few scenes. There’s a fat lady in the wings, doing her vocal warm-ups.

I cannot divine if it’ll be a long, lingering fade. Or a snap blackout. Those things are not for us to know.

I’ve been ready to die for a long time. I think Bobby, in retrospect, wounded me in some fundamental way. He left me with a hole in my heart. And ever since then, there’s been a half-acknowledged desire to kill myself.

I felt like that when Alyque left, but I had a little man to take care of.

When Zhya went, I knew I had turned the final corner. That the finishing line was somewhere down the straight.

And that’s okay. It’s okay to be melancholy. I’ve had a great life. I wish I’d made more money, but who doesn’t?

I’ve wanted death, always. I’m not scared of it. I’m ready to go. I’m not buying new furniture or new clothes. I really believe my time’s nearly done. When people die, I’m relieved for them. They’ve been spared. They can move on.

My Protima died. Sometimes I envy her, because she was in her prime, at the top of her game.

These days, these last days, there’s nothing I look forward to.

It’s perhaps a pessimist’s view of the world. But here’s the flip- side: If there aren’t any expectations, chances are that everything that follows has the potential for delight.

That is what I choose to believe.

In the ’80s, in the aftermath, I was smoking forty Rothmans a day. Every time I stepped out, every time I was at a theatre, every interval at every show, I could feel people looking at me. Sometimes it was one person, or three. If I was at Prithvi, for the opening of a new play, it was a gaggle of people, all looking. Some of the looks were sympathetic, some hostile, most just curious. And a cigarette was something to hold, something to do, security at the end of your arm, a way to become the statuesque lady in the corner, smoke curling out of your nostrils. I was loyal to my brand. I never mixed cigarettes. My voice was my signature, my instrument. My livelihood depended on it. Once, I went to a conference in Delhi. On the third day, I ran out of the cigarettes I’d carried from Bombay. I immediately rang room service. They said they didn’t have Rothmans. Unlike Bombay, you couldn’t buy Rothmans at the street corner.

As soon as I landed in Bombay, almost thirty-six hours later, I instructed my cab-driver to stop at the Kalanagar kiosk, the first available store on the highway. It was 10 at night, and I noticed a few seedy-looking men lurking nearby. I decided not to tempt fate and drove on.

On the 2nd of August 1986, the first thing I did when I woke up was to reach out for the phone to dial my supplier. And something occurred to me.

I had gone forty-eight hours without smoking. That habit cost me a hundred and seventy rupees a day.

I just wanted to see how much longer I could hold out.

I have never smoked since.

And even in the midst of this inexplicable year and a half – through this strange quasi-apocalypse that we’re still living through, there are things to see, to read, to do.

I learned how to use Zoom. And to attend webinars. And to act on hurried messages of ‘please mute yourself ’.

I acted. In the pandemic. I did readings. I performed.

The fire may have dimmed. Of course it has. That’s the passage of time. But the appetite still exists.

I look around me, I look at the young women around me. I see them – so poised, so knowledgeable, so eager. I see the situation they have inherited. It was so much more innocent when I barged through the door and tried to make a place for myself.

And I feel a thrumming – in the ground beneath my feet, and under my fingers. So much power. So much potential.

The fear will come. It always does.

But there is always tomorrow. There is always another opportunity. The world waits to be made in your image, every day.

You can do it all. That is what I’m here to tell you. You can dream up a career and do the things you love, and have a child and be a single mother, and take tragedy on the chin, over and over again and just plain survive. And still live a life of honour and integrity and grace and humour that will fill your days with love and laughter and wave after wave of memories.

Just ask yourself: what do I want?
And have no regrets about the rest.
None.

 

To read more, order your copy of Regrets, None today!

Regrets, None
About the Book - Regrets, None

Written with wit, humour and candour, Regrets, None is a rare memoir that is unafraid to bare it all. It follows veteran theatre personality Dolly Thakore's life and career -- growing up in Delhi and an assortment of Air Force…

About the Author - Dolly Thakore

Dolly Thakore is a veteran actor, newscaster, columnist and casting director who has worked in advertising, communications and public relations. She is also a staunch social activist, particularly for children and destitute women, and for Citizens for Peace. Arghya Lahiri…

About the Author - Arghya Lahiri

To read more, order your copy of Regrets, None, by Dolly Thakore | Arghya Lahiri today!

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