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...