There is no question that theatre and media personality Dolly Thakore is a force of nature. Our paths have crossed over the years, notably in 2019, when I was invited to participate in a show of Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues, reading out her text on violence against women, at the end of a Prithvi Theatre performance, starring Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal, Thakore and others. We were both on the Mumbai Press Club’s Red Ink Awards for the journalism selection committee, and earlier jury members of the first Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival in 2010. She has always been very generous with her time, energy and warmth, with her trademark big bindi, silver jewellery, cotton sarees and million-watt smile. Her memorable, well-written memoir Regrets, None, written by Dolly Thakore with Arghya Lahiri (Harper Collins India, R599), is an account of a feisty life, warts and all, written at 78, and continues my long interest in women’s stories, including of single mothers.

Thakore was born Dolly Rawson, into a Protestant family, in Kohat, Peshawar, now in Pakistan. The veteran theatre personality, newscaster and casting director, describes her growing up years in Delhi and several Air Force bases where her dad was posted, a 58-year theatre career, her life in London, as casting director for eight Academy Awards-winner, Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi, working in radio, television and advertising, and for social causes. “I wrote this memoir for my son, Quasar, so that he may understand,” Thakore’s preface says. It’s a wrenching line. Indian women, by nature, are inherently modest; Lahiri’s generosity allows Thakore’s voice to reach us: how many men write books about women? Thakore’s son Quasar Thakore-Padamsee, theatre director and actor, is Artistic Director, QTP Theatre Productions (which Quasar and Lahiri co-founded with others). Lahiri himself is a gifted writer, theatre director, lighting designer and filmmaker, who has worked in theatre for over 20 years.