Leela: A Patchwork Life
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Leela Naidu (with Jerry Pinto),
Penguin Viking,
180 Pages, Rs 450
Leela Naidu was listed as one of the five most beautiful women in the world by Vogue magazine. But she was much more than that. She was the fine-boned, haunting face in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Anuradha, in Merchant-Ivory’s The Householder and in Shyam Benegal’s Trikaal. She was the woman who refused to sign Raj Kapoor’s films four times. Jean Renoir taught her acting and Salvador Dali used her as a model for a Madonna. A Patchwork Life is a charming and idiosyncratic memoir.
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