‘Drink a glass of castor oil and dance’

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The first four months of my pregnancy were spent in bed, turning yellow [high bilirubin counts], with huge food restrictions, intermittent scratching, acute constipation and general irritation and boredom. I lost a lot of weight and that to me was the single plus point. I became bony, a size I had yearned for and never thought I would achieve. By late April 1984, I had my doctor's permission to get out of bed and move around. I was planning on joining my then husband in New York in early May when my life took a dramatic turn.

Out of the blue, one day, I received a telegram from the cultural attaché at the French embassy, someone I knew well, saying that the famous director, Peter Brook, and his team wanted to fly to Ahmedabad to meet and audition me for a part in their much-talked about international production, The Mahabharata. The script for the play had been written by Jean-Claude Carrière, a legend in cinema and theatre, who had written the script for such award-winning films as Diary of a Chambermaid, Belle de Jour and The Tin Drum. Carrière had accompanied Brook to India along with their co-producer, Marie-Hélène Estienne, the costume designer Chloé Obelensky and her assistant Pippa. Their journey across India and their meetings with many actors in search of the right cast to play the characters of Krishna and Draupadi had been much reported in the newspapers. As is usually the case, their search centred on the metros - the papers followed their journey from Delhi and Bombay to Madras, Calcutta and Bangalore. So why me and Ahmedabad? I assumed it must be for some minor character. The team came and after a short conversation, offered me the role of Draupadi. I was dumbfounded. Draupadi had always been my favourite character, feisty, unyielding, vocal. It was a role I could not refuse. But first I had to clear the auditions. I was flying to New York the next week in any case so my first audition was held there, with Brook's assistant, at the Lincoln Centre. Having passed that, I was flown to Paris, where, at Brook's theatre, Le Bouffes du Nord, I gave him an audition at 3 am. I had a flight back to NYC at nine o'clock. By the end of the audition the role was mine - if I would sign a two year contract. I panicked, but after much introspection and persuasion from family and friends, accepted the role...

Back in Ahmedabad after the US trip, and now clear of the hepatitis, I was allowed to get back to all my physical activities slowly and by the sixth month was dancing all out. My gynaecologist, Dr Behram Anklesaria, told me, ‘Pregnancy is the most natural thing in the world. A woman's body is made to carry a child and do everything else normally. Complications are not the rule and behaving like an invalid is wrong. You are a strong and physically active woman so do what you would normally do.' I did. Behram's parents were the gynaecologists of Ahmedabad in the 1950s and 60s. They had helped Amma with my birth, so in some senses I inherited Behram. A great lover of Western classical music, he was a gentle doctor and reputed to be a wonderful teacher. My tummy didn't show till late into the eighth month so I continued performing. I had decided that I wanted to give birth at home, in my own bed. Labour started on the morning of September 1. Behram arrived and put on Tchaikovsky and said, ‘Walk'. The labour lasted 36 hours and I marched till I dropped. As the pains grew, I screamed, ‘Amma make the baby go back.' Revanta arrived at noon on September 2. I hadn't been able to eat once labour started, and once I had felt him lying on my chest, and he had been thumped and had screamed, all I wanted to do was to eat. Nuzzling the baby I wolfed down three idlis. But the hepatitis took a toll on my son. I was breastfeeding him till his fourth month when he developed an intestinal infection that wiped out the intestinal lining. I was in Paris, in the midst of the worst winter in years, with frozen piping in my apartment, and the doctor wanted him hospitalised. I was terrified and convinced him that I would take all the care he needed at home, that as an Indian mother in Paris who spoke practically no French, I could not leave him in a hospital. Luckily he agreed and Revanta was nursed back to health. But I could not breastfeed him again, something that I regret till today. As I had lost a lot of weight in the first five months, my total weight gain was only ten kilos. But my tummy was flabby and I needed to get back into shape. As I was breastfeeding, I couldn't go on one of my orange-and-Complan diets again, but I started on tummy strengthening exercises like crunches and sit-ups. It took me four months to come back to my normal size and shape, four months of a lot of walking, climbing steps and exercises...

My second pregnancy in 1990 was a breeze compared to the first one. I was very careful to eat nutritious but not fattening food, so over the nine months I only put on eight kilos. I also continued my daily regimen of yoga and three hours of dance practice and swimming a couple of times a week. This time around too my tummy did not show and I was performing my one-woman solo show, Shakti: The Power of Women, till the end of the seventh month. I danced, jumped off tables, portrayed Rani of Jhansi in robust Kalaripayattu, with the full blessings of my doctor. Once I began to show, I stopped performing and started Kung Fu classes in Darpana. As the ninth month drew to a close I continued the martial art in the sweltering heat of an Ahmedabad May. The due date came and went. No baby. Kung Fu continued. On the 25th of May I finished the class at 8.30 p.m., and called Dr Anklesaria. The baby had to come, I told him, I couldn't take the load any more in 44 degrees Celsius! ‘Drink a glass of castor oil and dance,' he said. I did, with Revanta, now five and a half. Two years earlier, in New York, I had studied Flamenco and Revanta decided that we would dance the Flamenco that night. So we did, till past midnight, furiously, and laughing in glee. Finally he fell asleep and I sat down to read. At 1.30 a.m. I felt the baby slide down and called Dr Anklesaria. He came, and by 3 am. Anahita was born. The first delivery had lasted an excruciatingly long time, so this was almost as though nothing had happened. I asked Dr Anklesaria when I could dance. ‘Tomorrow morning,' he said. So I did. And continued rehearsing, with Anahita strapped to my chest, till she learned to walk...We have made pregnancy into an ailment. And rather than the pain and ultimate joy of a normal birth we seem to prefer picking a convenient time for a C-section. The women who do that without really requiring a C-section, are missing out on a unique experience. I could not have imagined that such acute pain was possible or that one forgot it the instant one held the baby in one's arms. But it is true, at least for most women. And it is a true miracle of the mind and body.

Edited extracts from In Free Fall published with permission from Speaking Tiger Books