Simi Garewal has never played by anyone’s rules but her own. She was barely a teenager when she first faced a film camera and she has kept audiences guessing ever since.

On screen she was the courtesan in Siddhartha (1972), the schoolteacher in Mera Naam Joker (1970) and the elegant schemer in Karz (1980). She worked with Satyajit Ray in Aranyer Din Ratri and with Mrinal Sen on Padatik and learned her craft from some of the finest filmmakers India has produced.

Then she went behind the camera. Simi made documentaries and directed a feature film, Rukhsat, before creating the show she is best known for. Rendezvous with Simi Garewal with its all-white set and unhurried, intimate conversations, got the biggest names from India and around the world, from film stars and politicians to sportspersons and industrialists, to speak with a kind of candour that Indian television had not seen before. It spawned plenty of imitators and none of them matched it.

Despite decades of being in the public eye as actress, director, producer and talk show host, Simi has maintained a stoic silence about her private life. Until now, she had revealed little about her early life, her life in Bollywood, the people she has met and worked with, the men she has loved and those who have loved her.

Now she turns author, telling the story of her extraordinary journey, her life and her loves in a voice that is entirely her own.