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Welcome to Namaste Motherfuckers, the only podcast where the worlds of work, comedy and well-being collide.I'm your host Callie Beaton and this episode is called The Bold, The Beautiful and The Beddy.
And before we get into it, just a friendly reminder that if you haven't already, please give Namaste Motherfuckers a follow now, wherever you get your stuff.That way, you'll never miss a show.Thanking you kindly, motherfuckers.
But back to today's episode.My guest found herself unexpectedly at the very heart of a scandal in the 1990s that went on to have a life-changing impact, both on her personally and on her career.
The word scandal originated in the 1580s, meaning damage to one's reputation.Nearly three centuries later came Scandal Sheet, a self-described sensational newspaper, and that was in 1884.And so began tabloid journalism.
Some of the biggest scandals of our time include, in no particular order, Clinton-Levinsky, talking of which, actually, I loved the BBC's Impeachment American Crime Story.If you get a chance to watch that, I'm sure it's out there somewhere.
But back to scandals of our time, remember when Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie became a couple and when Hugh Grant got caught out with Divine Brown? Or when George Michael God rest his soul got caught short in a toilet with an LAPD officer.
And let's not forget Janet Jackson's nipple gait at the 2004 Super Bowl.Simpler times. This is like old times, looking at you across a desk.I know.It was nicer when it was for real.I'm going to put a light on me.That's my guest today, Nikki Bady.
In 2017, the daughter of the Pakistani Prime Minister was caught in a corruption scandal after submitting deeds allegedly written in 2006.Unfortunately for her, the deeds were written using the Calibri font. which wasn't actually available in 2007.
I have to say that is the nerdiest way to get caught out ever.A muffin walloper, yes a muffin walloper, was Victorian slang for a gossip-loving woman who liked nothing more than discussing the latest scandal over tea and cakes.
That sounds like me and my friend Jo every Saturday morning, to be honest.And finally, the phenomenon of a woman jumping out of a cake has its origins in a 19th century scandal when a scantily clad woman came out of a pie at a party in 1895.A pie?
Not even a cake?Sounds like it might have been a savoury pie.
But I have to say, I'm so glad this isn't being visualised because I'm so fucking exhausted.Are you?
Nikki Bady is a British TV and radio presenter with a passion for celebrating arts, culture, and the stories of extraordinary people.
She got into presenting in the 1990s when Channel 4 gave her her own talk show, Bombay Chat, and its success prompted Star TV to give her a primetime chat show, Nikki Tonight, which quickly became Asia's most widely viewed show until the scandal, which you'll hear about in this episode, hit.
Since 2013, she's been hosting the Arts Hour on BBC World Service to an audience of 97 million listeners.That's just two more than we have for the podcast.
And she's been a regular on BBC Radio 4 for many years, including covering for Clive Anderson on Loose Ends and as a sometime presenter of Women's Hour.
In late 2020, she became co-host of the brilliant Saturday Live alongside the Reverend Richard Coles.
Nikki and I talked about marriage, age, patriarchies, spinal injuries, film, travel, Bollywood, the Dalai Lama, Bond movies, the Pope, Othello, The Bold and the Beautiful, being cancelled, Mumbai and LA.
But I started by asking her about her description of herself as Indo-Anglian.
Yeah, that was because living in India for so long, it is so patriarchal and it is a patrilinear society.So I used to say, well, I'll just go with it and I'll put the father first then, Indo-Anglian, you know, instead of Anglo-Indian.
But also, you know, Anglo-Indian means something slightly different in India.What does it mean?Well, the Anglo-Indian communities were often The women would be Indian women and the men would be British men coming out there to work on the railways.
And so they created these little communities that were Anglo communities.There's a word for them but it's no longer appropriate to use the word that we use to sum them up.
And it's quite different because there are, whereas my father was the Indian one, my mother English, and my father's family were, we don't believe in the caste system, obviously I need to say that, but they were like the Brahmin level of Maharashtrians.
So the Anglo-Indian community would be quite different.So I think when I once said I was Anglo-Indian, I was told, you're not Anglo-Indian.
So you went Indo-Anglian?
I did that really as a bit of tongue-in-cheek.
I was going to say because anything that's at all patriarchal hasn't really been your signature tune for your life so I see that if you're going with the...
taking the fatherly bloodline and is that so you were you were born in the UK born in Aylesbury so how did you end up spending time in India then if your parents met over here because you were discovered as a sort of on-screen talent when you were in Mumbai right?
Oh okay so there's a big gap in between that but so every year we would go to India on holiday and in fact when we were very young we'd go for a few months and we'd have a tutor every morning who'd come and
And she would teach us whatever was on the curriculum.But as soon as we started getting to O-level age, we would only go for sort of a month at Christmas.So I had that Indian experience, but I moved to India when I was 20.I was married at 20.
So I'd gone out for... Yeah, because you've got a couple of... When I was looking at you, you've got a couple of interesting marriages under your belt, Nikki Bady.I do.I do.So I'd gone... I'd actually... I was applying for drama schools.
and then was thrown off a horse in East Noyle, down in an area... Well, I know East Noyle really well.
There you go.On a farm in East Noyle.Some people will know because of Cloud's House.There's the famous... Rehab.Rehab, Cloud's House, yes.Very close to where this farm was.
And Andrew Lloyd Webber had a home there, I believe.
That's right.Not connected with rehab, we should say.
No, no, no.We don't want to get cancelled. No although if there'd been Twitter in my day I'd have been cancelled repeatedly.Anyway so then um I because I broke my back falling off this horse.
Oh you actually broke your back?
Yes in a number of places.Bloody hell.I was in hospital and I therefore couldn't do any of the recalls or any of that and then my grandparents had come from India I think my grandfather was having a cataract operation.
And then they said, come back and be with us for a while whilst you, you know, you recuperate, see the family, et cetera.So I went.Now in Bombay, most people live in apartments.Very few people have old style bungalows or houses.
And so I lived, well, my grandparents lived on the fourth floor of a building called Mayfair House on a road called Little Gibbs Road.Also English, isn't it? And my father had grown up on the ground floor.
And then when they built the bigger floors upstairs, the bigger apartments on the fourth floor, the family had moved upstairs.And my husband, my first husband, was living in the flat downstairs that my father had grown up in.That is so weird.
And then he had a little balcony and all these plants, and he had these tall wicker sort of chairs that looked over the balcony.And so when I'd come in from swimming at Breach Candy Pool or whatever, he'd go, hi, hi.
And then he said, come by, and that's what they always say in India, come by.In England, if you say drop by, well, do we ever say drop by?I don't want anybody dropping by my house like that.
Well, it's not the time.We used to drop by, didn't we?In the 70s, people would drop by.I think Angela Barnes does material about that, that on a Sunday, you know, your parents
pack you in the car and go we're gonna go and call on whoever and you'd all turn up but that would not be welcomed nowadays would it?
No but in India when people say drop by you do also because they've got lines of defense up to them because somebody else opens the door for you that sort of thing so you could always lie and say you weren't there it's not like an English home is it?
So I want to know then what first of all how old was this man so you were 20 and with a broken back quite the catch? Who wouldn't want a piece of that?I was also terribly chubby.
I can't believe you've ever been terribly chubby.Really, really.So, yeah, he used to call me my 65 kilo Nyx.65, I mean, I really was quite like that.
A lot of it was because I wasn't able to, you know, exercise and do things for ages, but continue to eat and drink and abated.But, so he was 10 years, nearly 10 years older than me.
Wonderful man.A wonderful man who you met down in the basement.Boy next door, boy downstairs.Yeah, well that means something else perhaps, boy downstairs.But boy downstairs.So how did boy downstairs become first Mr. Badey?
Only he wasn't Mr. Badey, was he?Because that's your name from your second husband.
Exactly, so my name is Nikila Mulgaonkar.So Mulgaonkar is a Maharashtrian name and my first husband's surname was Vijayakar, also a Maharashtrian.
So did you double barrel at that point?
No, can you imagine that on a checkbook in those days?That's a hell of a sentence.
Nikila Kantha Mulgaonkar Vijayakar wait you see in India no problem here yeah anybody who sees a mixture of syllables and in those days would have just gone although if you're doing a corporate speech where you're paid by the minute that's your first minute done just saying who you are so it would be great now so what name did you go with you went with his name I did I was Nikki Vijayakar and then
We had a wonderful, wonderful time.We were living in this phenomenal Art Deco apartment with furniture by Le Corbusier and I don't know what it was.Our lives were so carefree.First of all, there was no TV in India.You had two government stations.
So people didn't sit around and watch TV in the evenings.They went out.I learned more about cinema in those first few years I was in India than I have done in my life.I saw Tarkovsky retrospectives, Fellini, Antonioni, you name it.
We had the Max Muller Bavan where we saw German films.We went to the Alliance Francaise and saw French auteurs.I mean every night there was something happening.We saw dance, you know contemporary dance, Indian classical dance.
I learned about Indian classical music.We were always doing something and people hung out and we partied and there was jazz and it was incredible.
And is that where you got, well we'll talk about what you do now, but you do seem to have this massive capacity to be, I mean Well, culturally, you are one of the most educated people I've ever met.
You just seem to know about such a diverse range of influences, languages, cultures, aspects of culture.Is that where that all kind of was born in that marriage or did you always just have that?
I think I had a little bit of that, but definitely it was Sunil who lit up my world and opened my world.
What a great first marriage.I mean, that's worth it, even just for the education.Who needs university when you've got him as a first husband?Totally.
And all the friends that he had around him, friends and family. I have remained friends with, which is incredibly hard to do when some people break up marriages.So I thank him forever for that.I really do.
Can I ask, is he still around?Are you still in contact with him or not?
He is very much around.He moved to London.He's married.He is a food economist.So often when you see... Oh, is he?Yeah.Oh, you know what that is.I do know what that is.
So he does a lot of, like if you see the Waitrose magazine or certain ad campaigns, he does them.He's got a number of cookery books.
And he married this phenomenal designer called Geraldine Larkin, who was, I mean, I shouldn't really be telling their story, but she was in India doing lots of the embroidery and fine sequin work for incredible designers, Jill Sander, Almani.
and Sunil was very artistic so they obviously had loads in common and she has her own studio here so they moved to the UK she's Irish well she was never in India to live but they have a son and yeah but we're in touch but I mean I hurt him so badly Callie.
What did you do to him Nikki? I fell in love with my co-star in a play and then... Is that who became your second husband?
It is.And your second husband, I may be pronouncing it wrongly, Kabir Bedi.
Is a very handsome man.Do you know what, though?Oh my God.So, do you speak Italian?Because you speak lots of languages, don't you?
No, I don't.You speak Dutch.
I speak Dutch, French, a bit of Spanish.
Don't get me into Italian.
Okay, so Grande Fratello VIP.Big Brother VIP.He is currently in the Big Brother house in Italy because... Oh, is he?Yes, because apart from being... Celebrity Big Brother.Yeah.VIP, VIP.Yes.Apart from being a very big Bollywood actor,
He would never call himself a Bollywood star because he never danced and sang.And the heroes have to dance and sing.And also he's incredibly tall.He's like six foot four.And that doesn't work in Bollywood.
So he was, yeah, he's an actor and a Bollywood actor.Very, very famous.
Because the egos of those Bollywood actors, I mean, because they just go a bit unchecked, don't they?I mean, it's such a massive, massive... They're gods.Yeah.
And when you think about the number of people who watch Bollywood movies, not just the billion in India, but the diaspora, it's... Also, you know, when you speak to Russians, Russians all got Bollywood movies.
Lots of the sort of Eastern European countries got Bollywood movies.All of the Middle East, it sort of, it spreads its tentacles wide and quite deep sometimes.
So he was an actor, a Bollywood actor, but he wouldn't call himself a Bollywood star.No, he's too humble.
But he did, so he was in Octopussy, was it?So he did, yes.He was in a Bond movie.In a Bond movie.And what has led him, what has led to him being in the Celebrity Big Brother house in Italy?That sounds like a leap.
Okay, so he was devastatingly good-looking when he was in his twenties and thirties.He surely was.Even I got a bit flustered looking at his pictures, let alone meeting him in the flesh.
I was like, ooh, Nicky Badie's had the maritable bliss of this man for however long you were with him.You know he's 75 now.Is he?Doesn't matter though, does it?Gorgeous.
No, and he's still devastatingly good-looking.
And we're not 25 anymore, if we're honest, are we?
25 recurring, nearly recurring again.Exactly. So he auditioned for an Italian miniseries called Sandokan.And this was a story based on an Italian writer called Emilio Salgari's stories.And it was about the tiger of Malaysia.La tigre de Malaysia.
And Emilio Salgari had never been to India, Malaysia, or any of these countries that he wrote about, but he had a very definite image of what this swashbuckling sort of pirate type man would look like and it was Kabir.
When this mini-series hit, nobody was on the streets.When Kabir went out to sort of do a TV show or something, they had to shut down roads.There were pictures of him with people climbing over cars.It became insane.
Was it on Rai Uno?Was it on the big commercial?I think it was Rai Uno.
and he, I mean it was just, it was just extraordinary and there was a song, Sandokan, Sandokan.When we were in Capri.
Is it, were you still with him at this point that he became this massive?No gosh that was in the late 70s.Oh okay so you were fairly long, oh so you hadn't met him yet.No, no.I was a child, I was a child.
But they then, Italy took Kabir and the character of Sandakan to their hearts and he continued.
He then did Il Korsaro Nera the Black Pirate and they fell in love with him and of course there was a fair amount of exotica because of the way he looked and the roles he was playing but he's also he's a deep thinker and highly educated and came from his mother became a Tibetan Buddhist nun for the last 20 years of her life highest order ever given to a woman and
And so when we met the Dalai Lama, when he saw Kabir, he put his arms out like this because he thanked Kabir's mother for helping him get out of Tibet.
I'm just getting over you saying when we met the Dalai Lama, like that's not even a thing.No one said that before on the podcast.Wait, I met the Pope as well with Sir Ben Kingsley.Oh my goodness.
I was going to ask you who the interesting... I didn't realise that you not only were meeting all these interesting people but had family links to these things.So how did you come into the orbit and then the marital bed of Kabir Bedi?
Okay well I have to be very honest it was not the marital bed first of all it was pre-marriage that I got into that bed but anyway.
Fair play.I've never been married Nikki so clearly I'm not one to cast the first stone.
Well I've done it twice and I would say I'm never doing it again I'm quite happy not to have that but you know being in India in those days it was very difficult societally to be, to just live with someone.
And even my Indian side of the family would not have approved.So yeah, that was, I'm not saying that those are the reasons I got married, but that there is a pressure.
Well, there was, was, yes.And so you met him, how did you, how did you come to his image?So I was cast as Desdemona in a huge production of Othello.
Because you used to be an actor before you got into presenting.Yes, I did.Right.
and I played every single role that you can play in a Hindi TV series, there's only six of them, repeatedly and in fact for one I even wore the same costume once because you used to have to hire these costumes from a place called Maganlal Dresswala and it was like you know like angels and Burman is in London, we're angels now.
And so when it came to a British Raj Mem Sabh, they had that outfit that Audrey Hepburn wore at the races in My Fair Lady, the white and the blue and the hat.I wore that twice!How amazing.
For different characters.Well I hope there are photos of that in existence somewhere.
yeah they won't be they won't be surfacing let me assure you so yes so um i had been acting in hindi tv series i'd done a sort of couple of art projects and been doing things on stage and then yeah then i was cast as Desdemona and Kabir had done quite a bit of theater and this
director who was putting us together, well he thought he was India's Cecil B. DeMille, he thought he was India's you know Trevor Nunn, he was an advertising guru but he wanted to make Othello into, he wanted to play to Othello's Muslim roots.
So as Iago poisons Othello's ear suggesting that Desdemona was having something going on with Cassio and Othello goes back to his Muslim roots so they had him doing a sort of self-flagellation scene.It was really interesting but having said that
He played him with darker makeup and a wig, you know, which would just be horrific today.It would, and when would this have been then?What year?That would have been... 90s?So I married him in 92, 93.
So yeah, it would have been 1991, 92 I think, yeah.
So you were with him for quite a while, you did a decent stint in each of your marriages.I did 14 years with Kabir.I've never been with anyone as long as 14 years, that's amazing.
Well, towards the end, I think we'd come to a point where we knew it wasn't going to carry on.There was nothing, you know, momentous, but we decided to go our separate ways.But yeah, so there was no acrimony, there was nothing awful.
and he's very very happily married again for the fourth time.
When you look like him you can just keep getting married.At 95 he could go and get married a fifth time.
Yes he probably could but I hope not for Purveen's sake because I think she's fabulous and that's the other thing I know all his wives. One Christmas in LA, we were living in LA, I had both his ex-wives and all three of his children.
Two from the first wife, one from the second.And there I am in the kitchen, slaving over a hot stove, making a frickin' turkey for all these people.
And you know, I hate to say this, but there is a very Indian attitude to being in the kitchen when you have grown up with staff.
So nobody thinks, nobody remembers.
Yeah, they don't know what it takes to shop. Well, to plan, to shop, to prep, to cook.To wash up, I'm thinking.Oh, wash up, forget it.You know, no way.So, yeah.
So, did you live with him in LA then?So, at this point you'd lived, you were brought up in the UK, you'd lived in Mumbai.Did you live in LA because of him?
Yes so he got a job on The Bold and the Beautiful which it was initially it was a guest appearance actually I think we went out to LA.I used to love The Bold and the Beautiful I must have seen him in that.
He was Prince Omar and he and he loved Hunter Tylo's character what was the name?
Hunter, I loved all that lot.
We'd go to their, so the Bells, you know the family who produce Young and Restless and Bold and Beautiful, they are so wonderful and generous and they threw these mega parties and they bought this mansion that used to belong to Rod Stewart.
Honestly Callie, even though I mentioned all these names, everything excited me and it still does excite me.
I'm not surprised.I love it.
So do you find that's helped you then with all the people you meet now that they don't really blow your skirt up and that you're able to just be you because you've mixed in these kind of circles as long as you can remember?
Definitely, that was a gift, it was a real gift and also I think because of the grace and graciousness and elegance that Kabir moved through all these worlds because he moved in political circles, he moved in religious groups,
in certain ways because his father also became a mystic and a healer and he also you know he understood news and current affairs so he was you know lots of journalist types were part of our you know circle and then obviously not only
Hindi cinema, Bollywood, but also working in LA and having done big movies before, but then doing regular soaps, whatever it is, and then theatre work.So it really was a gift in some ways.
And do you think, I keep trying to tell myself this now, I don't know if you're single or you're not now, but I've been sort of on and off single most of my last 20 years, plenty of off, but lots of on.
And I don't know about you, it's a classic comedian thing that we all say that when we're happy we're not as funny and we don't do as well with our careers and it's definitely true that I am a much better comedian when I'm single, partly because I engage in what's going on around me, I'm out in the evenings, I'm more than happy to be there, I'm not looking at my watch thinking I better whiz back to see whoever it is, but I'm also just funnier because I'm not quite as settled.
Has there been a correlation between your, because you've got an incredible broadcasting career and you have had for, you know, the last 20 years and people will know you now from Saturday Live and they'll know you from Loose Ends, but most people will know who you are if they are at all into listening to the radio.
But do you think you would I know you can't know because if you weren't married for those years You don't know what it would have been like But did you find you had a sort of different appetite career wise and voice wise once you were single?
Oh most definitely so first that's the right answer Nikki for me and all the single sisterhood out there You're so perspicacious.
I forget how perspicacious you are, but I definitely know that I put lots on hold not with Sunil Sunil just wanted me to fly
But with Kabir, if you are with a star, and a star who's sort of tri-continental, what he wanted was a companion, a support system.In no way did he hold me back.
In fact, really, my break in TV presenting came as a result of the fact that he knew Farooq Dondi at Channel 4, and Farooq was looking for a presenter in India.
so we'd all just happen to have a chat with somebody else and that's how I got my first presenting gig on Channel 4.So Kabir didn't, he really helped me but I wanted to be with him.
So if he was going off, you know when you're shooting a movie you are off for three to six months in say Sri Lanka or Colombia and I wanted my marriage more than I wanted anything else.
So you were on the road with him not because he was saying you're less than.It is true though when you're in the orbit of it in all my years kind of working for MTV and different kind of broadcasters and on big shows.
It's really hard to explain, and lots of our listeners will have been in the orbit of people like this, but when you're with those absolute kind of A-listers, there's no other way to describe it than that other people end up in their orbit.
They are the star, and that's the way it is.And whether or not they wish to be, or they are arseholes, or they're lovely people, the whole world bends to their shape, and that is the way it is.
Absolutely and you know what I think though I mean there were times in Italy we went to a film festival once got out of the car and suddenly Kabir disappeared he was and I was being shoved out of the way and his security people had to come and rescue me and that was I found that just disgusting but I was also just so angry and
that I didn't mean anything to anyone in this situation.It was a real wake-up call.It's like, you are nothing, you know?
And I think for all the great experiences and the travel and the people that I met and the way the world was presented to me in all sorts of shapes and sizes, I really, really wish that I had started pursuing what I wanted to do sooner.
But I didn't know that I wanted or that I would be a presenter.
Because the idea of finding a voice and you, I'm really interested, and this has come up a lot on the podcast with different people, I'm really interested in the idea of how you kind of find a voice and a sense of self when what's going on around you might not give you a clear steer on that.
So somebody who's had not a nomadic life but you've certainly had an itinerant life and then
I used to find when I was younger and had less self-belief and less self-knowledge and less self-esteem, I would find even going away to Paris for a weekend, I would feel a bit like, I'd love to go, but I'd be a bit like, I don't really know how I fit in and I don't seem, I don't feel right here.
And I would almost de-self wherever I went.
I used to do material about, you know, going to Greece for a week and you come back with like a big hat and a gathered skirt and a basket and everyone's looking at you in Kentish Tang and what the fuck is your problem?
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So in terms of your sense of self, both in terms of travel and being within a marriage with a very dominant character, albeit he wasn't trying to be, so how did you, in a way it makes sense that it took a while
to literally find your voice that then became your career.But how did that feel for you, your sense of self and voice and identity?
Well, you know, I got after I did the show for Channel 4, which was called Bombay Chat, and I basically interviewed really, really famous Indians from all walks of life, from politics to Bollywood to cricket to whatever.
This was in the 90s when Channel 4 was fairly new still.
Yeah yeah and it was it was you know it was fabulous and glamorous and then I Murdoch came to Asia with Star TV and they wanted their own talk show so the only talk shows they had were daytime they bought in Oprah and Phil Donahue and I became the nighttime
talk show host, twice a week, primetime, with a show called Nikki Tonight.
And it was a massive deal, wasn't it, that show?
It was so massive.It went out to three-fifths of the world's population.I was on billboards.It was just incredible.There wasn't a day that went by when there wasn't something in the newspapers.And then it all came crashing down.
And it's... Shall I tell the story really briefly?
Yeah, do.I've read the story, but please do, because it wasn't your fault that this all... No, it wasn't.
So I had a... So we were... We were, in a sense, firing counterculture missiles into people's living rooms.When you think that India... Now, this didn't just go out to India, it went out to huge swathes of Asia, but...
India would only had two channels, government channels.Suddenly they've got all this stuff being beamed in. And here is someone who looks fairly Western, but also presents as Indian.And she is taking the mickey out of people like Mother Teresa.
And, you know, I mean, that sort of stuff was, it was a bit out there for that time.Now, we wouldn't even think about it.So I have a guest on this particular show,
bearing in mind we'd already been controversial and he was India's leading gay rights activist.His name is Ashok Raukavi and he edited what we might call a zine which was called Bombay Dost.
So Dost in Hindi means friend but when you say it as a gay man it means something else.So this was a publication for the gay community.
Now it was illegal to be gay in India and so he was treading a sticky path but he was such an advocate and an activist and he was amazing.
And I asked him why, considering that the people that he studied journalism with were now editor of the Hindustan Times, editor of the Times of India, the Indian Express, massive, massive publications, why he'd chosen to do this.
He then told me the story of how he'd written an article many years before for a very prestigious magazine called the Illustrated Weekly of India, and the editor published it.In that article he called Mahatma Gandhi, Gandhiji, a bastard banya.
So banya refers to the grocery class and bastard is the same word.
He was making a really, really silly, silly schoolboy point by saying, actually, under British rule that prevailed at that time, technically, Gandhiji's father was this old and his mother was that, so he was... But that doesn't... It doesn't matter what he's... It's taken as a soundbite, yeah.
And so he got into awful trouble, and so he was relegated to whatever. Well, I, in asking that story, have then stirred up this hornet's nest.
But in that same show, I need to say, he outed people who were industrialists, who were Bollywood stars and cricketers.
So our standards and practices department in Hong Kong, in those days, you made the show in Bombay, and then those, do you remember those massive Betamax tapes?
I do, and they'd all go for compliance in Hong Kong.Yes, exactly. I did bits of work with Star TV back in the day.So when I was on the other side of the camera, I knew all about how all of the cogs would work behind the scenes of shows like this.
So those physical tapes were couriered all the way on a plane to Hong Kong.And they were the small ones.It used to be one-inch tapes, which were not one-inch.
Well, they might have been one-inch, but the cases were like something... Were they the Umatic ones?
Yeah, those massive great ones.
No, that's probably what we were using then.
Huge things, yeah. There's actually a naked picture of me on the internet sitting on a bunch of those tapes.Well, Nikki, I think everyone listening is going to be straight into Google now.They won't find it.
But it's, but it's, but I actually know those might have been Bombay Chat, but they were massive tapes.Anyway, they go to Hong Kong.Was that a press shot or just for fun?What were you doing?
Actually, I did a, I did a shoot for one of India's greatest photographers who very sadly died far too young.
his name was Prabhudho Dasgupta and it was called women and he chose India's most beautiful women it didn't mean beauty as in oh you've got a nice face and great body just women who mind you most of them in the book I have to say were models.
And you're rather beautiful as well for anyone who's never seen your face.
No you're so sweet but this was about being naked It was all about the female form.So did everyone have to be naked?Yeah, but this is the problem.
Most of the people who did it, when they then had to sign their equivalent of a release form, they suddenly got cold feet, like their pet, their families would... Oh, I bet.It would bring shame, or they wouldn't get a good marriage.
So actually, it ended up being mostly the models who were doing that kind of work anyway.So I did a shoot for him, and there's a full frontal but no... No pubic hair, people.Yeah, thank you.Breasts were there, legs there.I'm also smoking a cigarette.
How do you feel when you look back at that picture now?Because we always know just what we do.Now we look back and we go, God, I was perfect looking.We didn't realize, did we?Oh, Kelly!
Kelly, if only I could look like that now, honestly.And then there's another one of me looking really severe, like all my hair's back off my face.And only people who know me really well would open that.It's the first picture in the book.
Only people who know me well would go, That's you.
Because it's so... I'm dying to see these pictures.I'll show you, I'll show you.Show me.I'll take a photo and show you.Show me, I'd love to see.So you were saying though that, so these massive tapes got sent off to Hong Kong.Sorry, yes.
Thanks for keeping me on track.No, that's all right.It's not like you know how to interview, Nikki.
This is my job, it's not... The SMP department, they decided that they had to obviously protect the living, as in the people who we doubted, cut out anything offensive.They did not think about Gandhi. Gandhi, the father of the Indian nation.
And that stayed in.Yeah.And the next day, it's my photograph and Gandhiji's photograph on the front page of almost every newspaper.So you got the red flag.In every language.
Well, the thing was, the headlines said things like, Gandhi called bastard on Nikki tonight.And you know people don't read beyond that.
To this day, when I'm back in India, I'll be at some party and someone will say, ah, Nikki Gandhi, you bastard, blah, blah, blah, and they'll think that I said it, but they never... And this was even pre-Twitter, that there was this furore.
Imagine what it would be like now.
Kali, I would be cancelled.I would probably... They burnt effigies of me in the streets in Delhi.Seriously?Yeah, yeah, this got very serious.But, and they didn't even look like me, That's the worst of it.
They weren't naked atop a pile of tapes were they?No, no.With a bony back and everything.So that was very frightening, very frightening.So what did you do?Did you move back here or what did you do?Well initially Kabir had said, because he was in LA.
So you were still with him at this point?
Oh yes, and I'm faxing all these front pages and then my parents are in the UK saying,
There's a big thing about you in the Guardian and the Telegraph have written this and you go, oh my god It's everywhere because a part of you thinks it's going to die down because we put the next show out with an apology and also
I didn't say anything, but when he says, but the guy who published it is an irresponsible bugger, I laugh then, but you know what that becomes in the press?Gandhi caught bastard on Nikki tonight and Nikki baby laughs.
But I was told- Doesn't matter, does it?
If that's what people have decided, that's what they've decided.So you were canceled before being canceled was even a thing.I so was.You were so ahead of the zeitgeist.
I mean I can laugh about it now, but I had to stay in India I had I had I had death threats and then they wanted to arrest me under the Terrorism Act which is called TADA Yeah, no that that's when it got really serious And then my agents here in London said you need to get her out and I was booked on three different flights It was really serious really serious, and I had um I
I had gurkhas, one outside my bedroom door, one outside the main building and then we also had an armed guard because the guy who'd made the comment had been beaten up on the street and so they just didn't know because if you offend the father of the nation can you imagine how that upsets people?
I can't this feels like a Netflix documentary waiting to happen I'm gripped by this and so you ended up having to move back to the UK for kind of... I went back to LA.
Oh you went to LA?Because we were living in LA.I was living between LA and Bombay at that point.
And then you moved back to LA and then ended up, so it was after all of that because it's not, well I suppose it's not that unusual that people go from doing on screen to on air.
People do go from TV to radio but what I do, one of many things I love about you
is that I think sometimes I suppose I'm talking more about comedians so for a lot of comics telly is the big thing they really want to be on telly and radio is a bit of a kind of okay whereas I I think like you I absolutely love the spoken word I love it I know you do love watching telly but my favorite thing is to listen to things I love podcasts I love radio and I love the fact that for you it isn't a kind of like oh well I'd like to be on screen but okay I'll be on for you it's a massive passion isn't it what you do
Yes, but I did.You've tapped exactly the attitude that so many people had.So in 2002 I think, no 2003, a wonderful man called Kuljinder Singh, who I call Kuli, I'd been interviewed on some show in I think it was called Network East.
And Cooley was a producer and he said, oh, I think you should do something on radio.And this was for the BBC Asian Network.And initially I just thought, a radio? No, where's the smoke and mirrors?
But the moment I did it, it was like everything that is a challenge for you, using your brain, listening, being an empath, thinking on your feet.Live radio, obviously, but the skills are still there.
and that ability, Marshall McLuhan the futurologist always said that radio was the hot medium didn't he and TV was cold and my goodness and the craft of radio is just amazing.
It's massively underestimated I think by anyone who hasn't I mean even down to the you know lots of the radio stations including We Met on BBC London
and that you're doing your own desk, you're operating everything, you're doing the whole blooming thing even though it's a very listened to kind of a show, I know not all shows operate in that way but you are thinking about many many different things at once and you're not always getting luxurious
research packages, you're not just there as sort of froth to front it, you've got to do your shit right, I mean that's the... So true, you put that so beautifully, so beautifully.
And do you, because now that I listen to you, and as I can't tell you how pleased I was when you started doing Saturday Live because I listen to it always, I think, I was gonna say everybody listens to it, they don't because it hasn't got every viewer in the, every listener, I always say viewers because I worked in telly for too long, but listening to you do that show has been an absolute delight, but one of the things that strikes me is
I mean if we talk about you know dinner party guests we don't all have dinner parties as much now do we but you're a pretty fascinating dinner party guest in terms of the things you know about and the people you know and the cultures you understand and are interested in but the amount of research that you must do even if you just take the Arts Hour which is BBC World Service which for people who don't know what's the listenership of a show like it?
World Service English.That's incredible isn't it?So you're doing these shows and you've done nearly 300 episodes of the Arts Hour?Yeah and the Arts Hour on tour too.
Yeah which is a bit of, so but starting with just the Arts Hour before we talk about the Arts Hour on tour, so for that you're curating
you're looking at things on those subjects and to do with that, whether it's Pedro Almodovar or whatever it is, looking at relevant culturally curated components to make a show, which has you doing some of the interviews and extracts of other interviews.
But I mean, the work that goes into that, because you're sort of build as the person who
um you know who presents it and writes it i'm sure you have some research help but i mean that's one hell of a task even that version of the show it really is but i have to say well i wish i was paid more because the pay for that is shit um i state that the pay for the arts are on tour bizarrely is really wonderful
but I love it.It's like telly, like comedy, you get all your monies on tour, that's where you make, you can do podcasts till you're blue in the face but do a live one and suddenly there's money.There you go.
But I love it, I love it so much.
Is it, it's not weekly, is it?How often does it go over?
Yeah, the Arts Hour's weekly and then the Arts Hour on tour is eight to ten times a year but now obviously for two years we've done nothing.
and those eight to ten times for anyone who hasn't listened to it and there are links we'll put links to it but obviously you can find it through sounds and all the usual places but the arts are on tour so i've listened to lots of them as you know i live part of the time in amsterdam and i loved your herman cock one but taking that as an example yeah so he so he wrote the dinner for anyone who doesn't know and is a very acclaimed dutch writer but so for that as an example so you'll be in a beautiful
iconic kind of artsy venue wherever you might be in this case Amsterdam then you'll have a cast of characters they might be musicians writers you're anchoring the whole thing having a sort of panel discussion people will perform people will um and so the experience of doing that that isn't just popping over and doing a quick appearance like you've got to immerse yourself in the country's culture the city's culture
and then all those components of... And the politics.
Yes, so how do you... so even just that, and even listening to that as someone who understands the nuances of that country almost as well as I understand the UK, I was like, bloody hell, that's very... you know, you have got your shit down about this, but you're doing that in eight or ten... so every month on average... Yeah.
you're doing one of those, which is massive.
Can I say that's probably the best thing anybody has ever said because you've really understood what goes into it.We make it look like it's, you know, a lovely shiny floor show for radio in some ways.And often, so it's soft power, isn't it?
So basically you are going to a country and the idea is to find a country where there's some change. And then you look at how artists have responded to it.
So through artists, and that can be from any medium, so it can be a filmmaker, a writer, an architect, it can be a poet, and obviously we have music and comedy, but, and can I just say,
The comedians are the most important part of the show in so many places because... Well, they're the social commentators for starters, aren't they?
That's what they do for a living.People underestimate that in comedians.And comedians are often very clever as well.I'm not saying I am, but lots of comedians are very bright.
you are supremely bright and yes they are they are able to cut through in a way and give us an idea.
And you know the other thing Callie is that we'll be in like Bogota or Sao Paulo where people don't do their sets in English they do them in Spanish or Portuguese and and we show up asking them to do their set in England.
I mean, obviously we've been in contact for a few months researching and preparing it, but those comedians do their sets and bring something to it.It's quite extraordinary.But it is the greatest learning experience I've ever had.
It's also the greatest privilege I've ever had to do the Arts Are On Tour.Nothing else compares to that.And I love it.And to wrap your head around, like going to, well, there's quite a few places, but for example, in Bogota,
The FARC rebels had laid down their guns and this peace process was underway, I think, two years before we got there, so it was still very ragged. I went with this rock star called Andrea Cheveri.She's from a band called Atercio Polados.
And when we walked out, so we do this feature called Culture Cab, which I designed so that you've got one person from the panel who shows you their cultural secrets.That's a fantastic thing.Yeah.Real inside track.It is.
And it also gets you to know one person at least before you do the live show.
So does that help you?Is it a good sort of
hugely and then you and also like you i'm a runner so everywhere that i land i make sure that i run first thing in the morning as the sun's rising because feeling the city gives you that's such a good way to i used to find when i was traveling in sort of corporate jobs and my whole day would be in boardrooms and meeting rooms and i used to think if i wasn't a runner i wouldn't feel i'd even been to these places because you're in another fancy boardroom and another fancy restaurant
often with people who aren't from the country or lots of people aren't and you might as well be anywhere so I always find running acclimatizes you and you literally breathe in the country don't you?
You breathe in the country the magnetic pull of the earth goes you rearrange the atoms yeah I knew you'd get that but I this wonderful woman Andrea first of all she's mobbed on the streets but she takes me to Doris Salcedo's exhibition I'm doing like
air bunnies.It's called Fragmentos.So Doris Salcedo is one of Colombia's greatest living artists and we walk into this, there's a white wall and it says Fragmentos.It looks like we're going into a beautiful house.One story house.
Walk in, there's a lovely garden with tropical shrubs and then you walk in and on the right hand side there was a room and it's just got tiles, like slightly bumpy tiles.Well those tiles are the melted down weapons of the FARC rebels.
And they've been beaten into shape by women who've lost their sons, their brothers, their husbands, their fathers, their uncles.So the rage, the grief, everything that you can imagine emotionally, those women could pour out.
into hammering the shape of the mold for that tile for that melted down molten weaponry that could have killed one of their family members and those tiles are on the floor and I sat on that floor and I just thought I understand more through this one piece of art
than I think I would have done if I read a dry history book.So that's the power.It's such a privilege.I am so lucky to be able to experience things like that and then understand on a different level.It's really amazing.
there's something about curiosity and the sort of travel I've done, I'm not as well traveled as you but for work I've had to travel a lot and there's something about, I remember when I first got a sort of internationally kind of jet-setting job and I was in my 20s and everything went wrong and there were blizzards and the plane couldn't take off and we landed in another country and I remember thinking then and I was sort of 25, 26
if I'm gonna do this for a living I'm going to need to just know that the journey is the journey which sounds like a wanky way to put it but really I don't know literally on that occasion which destination I will end up in and if it's anywhere near where I meant to be and I realized even on that first trip the conversations that were fascinating were the ones I didn't even think I'd be having because I didn't think I'd even be there and I think if you're willing to
open your mind that's the bit that I find so sad in terms of the way the world has gone at its most negative at the moment is that we're all sort of entrenching in our own world views and not being at all open to what else might be out there across the wall and that's just such a it feels like such a regression doesn't it?
It really does and you sum it up so beautifully and that I mean in one way that's why the World Service is so brilliant because they tell so many stories from places that we I mean a lot of places we wouldn't even know about but many that we don't think about for sure and
and yeah so to be able to do that through the arts and just open minds and really all I'm doing is being a conduit to tell those stories to the audience but what a gift.
But it's very hard to be that conduit unless you've got I mean I'm sure you are the same but everything I ever do even if I'm hosting a panel for a
corporate I always have you know 500% of what I'm going to use so I know I've got all of this stuff and I always say to them throw everything at me and they say well you won't need all of that and I think well yeah but I don't know which bit I will need so give me everything and I will choose what I need.
And you just want it there don't you want it in the front of your mind to pull from at any point?
Yeah and to immerse yourself that's why I think your kind of culture cab thing is so fascinating because you need to get so deeply immersed into the thing you're about to do just before you do it that so that the thing that felt effortful suddenly becomes effortless because you've assimilated it and I very much hear that in everything you put out as a broadcaster and I think it is worth mentioning it because it may look and sound effortless
but it it cannot be so i don't know how you have time to watch as much telly as you say you do nikki and do as much research as you do for these things by the way can i just i i just have to tell you something so um i was at the u.s embassy this morning
praying that I would get my visa in time to go because I was such a div that it had expired.
And this is you doing Arts Hour on tour in the States.Yes, coming up.
New York, Seattle and Los Angeles.What a nice thing to do.Oh, it's the most major one ever.We've never done three in a row like that.But, you know, can you imagine if I let down that whole team and didn't get the visa?Doesn't bear thinking about.
Then I did a whole day's work for BBC Academy.And then before I was talking to you, I just sat down and I watch the Real Housewives of New Jersey because that is what feeds my soul.
Is it?That's so funny.I just wouldn't think of you.
I watch every single housewife.I know, I know.
Is it Real Housewives?Is that your poison?Is that the one that you can't live without, Real Housewives? Oh, I mean, I watch, you would not believe what I watch.
If you're shagging someone who's in Bold and the Beautiful for years, it probably just gets into your blood and you're like... I do watch an inordinate amount of trash, but I also obviously watch masses of great stuff.I vote for the BAFTAs too.
Yeah, me too.You and I have that in common.And we take it seriously, don't we?Well, you should do because I always think if you don't, you've got your voting privilege and so many people want it.
that unless we're willing to take it seriously we shouldn't have a voting privilege.It's a privilege not a right.
And this year, I mean just this is for the films, I looked at some of the stuff and I thought and I know because I know other people who vote and I just thought I think people should have to take a test
people that are allowed to vote to prove that they've watched it.
Because all you have to do is tick and say I've watched this, don't you?And then you can say you've watched it.It's one of the most lovely things.I really missed it when we couldn't.This is a real first world bit of the conversation.
Everyone would be like, oh Callie and Nicky are your diamond shoes too tight. but it's not easy getting through all those BAFTA films especially in the lockdown when we couldn't even go to screenings.
Before everyone wants to shoot us let us move on to the three questions that I ask everybody who comes on the show.
Before I do ask you those three questions though I mean god it must be hard to narrow it down from all the experiences you've had but if there was one person you've met who
surprised you or stood out in for for whatever reason if you just had to without overthinking it think of a person who would it be who most surprised me yeah or who's really stuck in your mind for a reason you might not have expected oh my god oh i didn't know you were gonna ask this oh my god stuck in my mind for
See, the weirdest thing is that a couple of people who have have gone on to be really good friends.So that sounds a bit wanky, doesn't it?No, go on.Mark Strong.You know Mark Strong, the actor?
Well, he's so interesting because... And he and his wife are really good friends.But having been married to an actor, having been an actress, once an actress, always an actress, there is a...
I used to call it a genetic fault, but that's wrong, isn't it?Look at me, look at me, love me, love me.
There is a part of actors that is deeply either afraid or constantly needing approbation and always needing to put somebody else down in order to... I see that a lot, and I'm not just saying that about actors.
He is genuinely... He surprised me so much.
lovely lovely man because he doesn't have those traits of needing to be on other people's shoulders to make himself feel like no way no punching down and also makes the wickedest martinis and loves to walk the dog and i don't know there's just something but that's that's a bit of a celebrity thing in terms of
In terms of it, you know, I mentioned Andrea Chevery, the woman in Bogota.I've had a number of experiences like that with guests on the Arts Hour on tour in various countries.
And I genuine, that moment for me and what she opened my mind to that would have been closed otherwise.I mean, I think that she might be
I've had double goosebumps I had it when you said it and I had it when you just mentioned her again so yeah those stories are incredible aren't they and you sometimes stand trying to assimilate what it is you're seeing or hearing and to try and sort of capture that and think I've got to remember that I was here and this moment happened and it's almost too big to comprehend isn't it when you're there thrown completely outside your comfort zone trying to absorb this enormous bit of information you've just been told so
My sister's gonna be mad.She would want me to say the Pope, you know.My sister's a converted Catholic.Okay, well for Nicky's sister, we'll say the Pope.Nicky's like, oh, do we have to?
So Nicky, a question that you... He was wearing stockings that, you know, keep your varicose veins in.What do you call those?Support stockings.
Oh, like the ones you wear on flights to keep your... I do wear them on flights.You're quite right.Yeah, me too.
The deep vein thrombosis stockings.
Thrombosis, yeah.And there's a look.
He was wearing thick white ones.
Was he?You weren't wearing those on top of your pile of one inches, were you?That sounds funny to anyone who doesn't know about tape formats. Anyway, moving on.
My mum and dad listen to this as well.Well, can I thank your mum and dad for producing such, not only a fine, fine woman friend for everyone to have, but also such a brilliant funny mind.
Oh, well gosh, coming from you Nikki Bodey, I will absolutely take that.Thank you.
So what would you pick as your namaste motherfucking life-changing moment?
I think it would have to be that day that I was on the front page of all those papers and suddenly from being this like celebutard I was persona non grata everything was over because anyway I'm not talking about that moment in terms of what it did to ruin my career
It's because I started a learning process about cultural sensitivity.And I can look back and it was such a learning curve.
Who did we think we are just throwing out all that stuff and thinking it was funny just because it was funny to us in the UK or in a privileged educated scenario that we could mock something?No.So that was sort of...
That was my first lesson, that was ground zero cultural sensitivities and that turned my life around.
How did you, as a quick aside on this question, I had Sean Walsh on the show a few episodes ago and obviously he was very famously cancelled after what happened with him when he was on Strictly Come Dancing.
and when he talked about that and he's done a show about this so people will know the story of what happened afterwards but he said it literally nearly cost him his life he was so vilified and had such an enormous collapse and crisis he doesn't quite know how he survived it and I think it's taken him till now
to get back out, not because the world wasn't willing to see him, but he wasn't willing to be seen by the world.So how did you cope with that then?
Because you were a youngish woman, you had a brilliant, brilliant glittering career taken away from you overnight, and your life was in danger.
I think I had some sort of belief that when you are humbled like that, it is for you to pick up and learn.
But honestly, Kelly, if this had happened now and I was reading the stuff, all I read was stuff in newspapers or letters that were sent to agents.If I had to see every day the vilification of me, I just don't know how I would have coped.
So I think I was hugely lucky to have lived in a time when not everybody could shoot at you. But I grieved and I learned.
It's a living loss, isn't it?I mean, I think that's a really useful phrase for people to have in mind, especially at the moment, because we've all experienced living losses, haven't we?
But those ones, it is interesting for people to see what it takes, you know, the resilience it takes to go through that and yeah, to the extent that you did.And on a lighter note, Nikki, what's your favourite joke?
Oh, my favourite joke is... But it's too visual, my favourite joke.My phone is blowing up.One second, Kelly.It's not like you're... Oh, my God.Hollywood actress stabbed Reese.
No, with a knife.Oh, you.
you and you actually got me with that first of all as if I would ever pick up my phone in the middle of talking to you well I felt a bit number one I was like oh yeah that is my favorite joke it's probably totally inappropriate isn't it well we're gonna have to use it now and you might get cancelled again Nikki imagine yeah here we go I'll take it I'll take it sorry Reese
We don't have quite as many subscribers as you had viewers when you had your show and got cancelled, so we're alright.It'll only be mini-cancelled.And if there's one bit of life advice you could give to anybody listening, Nikki, what would it be?
Not harmful mischief, just mischief.
Every episode, as you know, I pick a thing inspired by my guest that I am going to do.And this week, it's an easy one.It's got to be diving into the Arts Hour archive.
And I have to say, having had a look through it, it is an embarrassment of cultural riches.And it will stop me watching old episodes of Celebs Go Dating, which at the moment is my equivalent of Nicky's desperate housewives addiction.
There's a link to Arts Hour in the show notes.And of course, you can find it on the BBC Sounds app. So that is pretty much it for this week.Please do remember to rate, review and recommend the podcast.
And we will be back in your feed next Monday, as always, when I'll be talking to comedian, podcaster and very dapper human being, Rich Wilson.
Having been lucky enough to travel the world with comedy, you see people from different cultures, but fundamentally we're all pretty much the same.
Namaste Motherfuckers was written and presented by me, Callie Beaton, and produced by Mike Hanson and Karush Adami for Pod People Productions, with music by Jake Yap.I'm Callie Beaton.Until next time, motherfuckers.
Hi, I'm Sam Baker, and welcome to The Shift, the podcast that aims to tell the no-holds-barred truth about being a woman post-40.
Anyone that's worried about turning 40, I say, hurry up and get here.This is where the party is.It's just a good place.
Created and hosted by me, journalist and author Sam Baker.I started The Shift because I was so tired of the absence of older women's voices.
Three little injections around my eyes and suddenly I was like, oh, I just got the last year back.Not trying to look 30.I just want to look 42.
Where had all the women over 40 gone?You know, nobody ever gets addicted to kale.
You get addicted to things that kill you.
So I created The Shift to make a space to talk about everything from life, love, sex, to careers, confidence, mental health, menopause.I mean, seriously, if you want to walk about in your pajamas for the rest of your life, we're invisible.
Each episode I speak to an inspiring woman about her shift, the second half of our lives.
I feel very strong and think I genuinely don't care what anybody thinks of me and that does come with age.
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