Anyone who lives for so many years and retains their senses is allowed to write her/his memoirs. Particularly when the memories are so rich and varied. The intrepid Zohra Segal, actor, dancer and raconteur par excellence, is all of 98-years-old and still going strong. She loses no opportunity to recite Urdu poetry from memory. Her favourite is Hafeez Jalandhari’s Abhi toh main jawan hoon…

Zohra is frank and open in her recollections Close-Up — Memoirs of a Life on Stage and Screen, except perhaps about the period she spent alone with Uday Shankar, aka Dada, in Bali (1938). Both Dada and Papaji (Prithviraj) were significant in Zohra’s journey from being an enthusiast to becoming a performer. But while she is ambiguous about her relationship with Dada, she is very open about her relationship with Papaji. That Prithviraj Kapoor considered Zohra important in his life is evident from the 21 letters he wrote to her between 1960 and his death, the last one written shortly before he died on May 29, 1972, aged 65. These letters are published in the book for the first time.
Zohra’s description of her exciting journey from Dehra Dun to Dresden in Germany with her maternal uncle is vivid and entertaining. Zohra’s maternal uncle, one among four, remains nameless, except for the sobriquet Zohra bestows on him, “Memphis”. In Dresden, Zohra discovered Mary Wigman’s school of dance where she studied for four years. Her description of the down in the mouth aristocratic family she boarded with, the friends she made and her tours in Europe, her disappointing first trip to London, are full of warmth and wit.
Zohra describes her years with the Uday Shankar Ballet Company (1935 to 1938) as one of the most “worthwhile and enjoyable periods of my life”. The company’s American tour was very exciting for Zohra, especially the visit to Hollywood where she met a number of stars. Word had got around that the “Mumtaz sisters (Zohra and Uzra) belonged to an Indian state, and I did nothing to deny the rumour”, writes Zohra. Eventually, at a party Pearl S. Buck presented her The Good Earth, inscribed, “To the princesses Zohra and Uzra”, Zohra writes, with an almost audible chuckle!
The ballet company moved to Almora where the Uday Shankar School started in March 1939 with just 10 students and gurus from every classical Indian dance tradition. Here many relationships blossomed. Dada married the beautiful Amla Nandi, Simkie married Prabhat Ganguli, Ravi Shankar married Annapurna, his guru’s daughter, and Zohra married Kamleshwar Segal. Zohra describes her love for the talented dancer, painter and designer Kamleshwar with coquettish charm.
The next stage of Zohra’s life, between 1945 and 1956, was spent in Bombay, with Kamleshwar and daughter Kiran who is a well-known Odissi dancer today. The struggling years in Bombay are eloquently described with her stint in IPTA though she finally opted for Prithvi Theatre. Zohra writes with passion about the theatre and the teaching method of Prithviraj, and gets emotional when writing about the death of husband Kamleshwar on May 11, 1959, from overindulgence in alcohol and frustration at being a non-achiever. Zohra, who went on to receive the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship for lifetime achievement in 2004 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2010, traces her ancestry to an Afghani Jew, Abdul Rashid, who converted to Islam in 631 AD. Her mother’s ancestry goes back to the Pathan Omar Khan who on coming to India was appointed the Nawab of Najibabad. Born in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, on April 27, 1912, Zohra was the third child in a family of five sisters and two brothers.

Zohra’s ability to cope is evident in the steps she took after her husband’s death. After sending Kiran to Aligarh and packing off six-year-old Pavan to Welham’s prep school for little boys in Dehra Dun, Zohra came to Delhi at the behest of Kamla Devi Chattopadhyaya and took charge of the Natya Akademy of Dance and Drama to be launched under the auspices of the Delhi Natya Sangh. This did not pan out as Zohra had wanted. However, while she was there, Zohra was active in the theatre, and there are several black and white photos of this era in the book.
The second time Zohra came to Delhi was in 1974 at the invitation of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was interested in starting a National Folk Dance Ensemble. Unfortunately, despite good intentions on all sides, this excellent project fizzled out within a year. An angry and hurt Zohra wrote to Indira Gandhi, however, Emergency was declared on June 25, 1975, and Zohra returned to London and started life again.
During her first return to London in 1962, after passing a 10-week course at British Drama League, the first job that came Zohra’s way was that of a dresser to the actors at the Old Vic, an experience she writes about with great humour. “I received a thorough lesson in the ‘caste system’ of British theatre”, she writes. Her life was not easy but Zohra never complains as she did clerical jobs to look after her children. Zohra did several forgettable films, like the 1967 Merchant Ivory film The Guru. Her first big break came with the mini-series The Jewel in the Crown where she played Lady Lily Chatterjee, a wealthy matron, bossing over 30 servants. It was a role she hated:“My dialogue was artificial and brittle and my appearance, far from being aristocratic, made me look like a tarted up ayah”. Fortunately she got better films after the exposure, like The Honorary Counsel, Courtesans of Bombay, Arthur Joffe’s Harem, Tandoori Nights, Bhaji on the Beach, Toba Tek Singh for Channel 4 made as Partition. She also did small roles in Bollywood, about which she writes, “Eight years with Dada, 14 years with Papaji, 25 years in English television. But when I return to India in 1987, none of this is important — till I get a small role in a Hind film”.

Kavita Nagpal is a theatre personality and a well-known critic