8/28/2021 Who Is Bina Ramani?

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“I Wish I Had The Guts To Say ‘No’ To A Loveless

Marriage”- Bina Ramani

By
Kritika Khanna (https://www.youthkiawaaz.com/author/kritikakhanna/)
in Culture-Vulture
(https://www.youthkiawaaz.com/category/art-and-culture/), Society
(https://www.youthkiawaaz.com/category/society/)
20th November, 2019

The Story Of A Multi-Faceted Woman Who Transformed Hauz

Khas Village
Dismissing Bina Ramani as a caviar socialite from Delhi’s elite is easy. However, the challenging
episodes in her life, that she has braved through, with guts and gumption, are lesser-known and
often overlooked.

Born into an affluent family of British India, that moved to Bombay from Pakistan, after the
tumultuous partition of India in 1947, one might expect her to have had a life nothing short of a
fairy tale. Well, to some extent it was. However, past the magnificent façade of unicorns and
rainbows, lies the story of a woman who braved through every hurdle life threw at her. We are
talking about Bina Ramani – a fashion designer, socialite, restaurateur, entrepreneur, and
philanthropist, but more importantly, a daughter, a wife, a mother, and a woman.

Coming from a conservative and illustrious Sindhi Sikh family, Bina Ramani, (born Bina Lalvani)
was the youngest of 12 siblings, always protected from the evil side of life. Ironically, Bina’s later
life has been nothing short of a sea of scary vortexes, in which she has often found herself trapped
but eventually emerged stronger. While her various stints in the glimmering world of fashion are
known to all, there still remain so many facets to her multi-layered persona, which are relatively
unknown.

Reminiscing of her childhood, Bina describes herself as a tomboy who would blow the biggest
bubbles out of her chewing gum. A young girl with untraditional dreams, she went on to participate
in the national games for high jump in 1956. After school, she was sent off to Lady Irwin College in
Delhi to study home science. Later, she secretly trained at one of the biggest modelling schools in

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8/28/2021 Who Is Bina Ramani? | Youth Ki Awaaz

London of that time and aspired to become a singing sensation at the age of 18. This laid the
foundation for Bina’s dream of living an independent life full of glitz and glamour, something that
eventually came to her as the years passed by.

Bina’s family was, (and still is) close to the Kapoor Khandaan, which led her to be close to the
then-superstar Shammi Kapoor. “He (Shammi) had just lost his wife and had sunk into depression.
Mrs Krishna Kapoor, known universally as ‘bhabiji’, tried her best to arrange my marriage with him.
Despite opposition from my family and Raj Kapoor himself, who didn’t approve Shammi’s wild
ways, the two of us fell madly in love,” revealed Bina Ramani in an interview
(https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/spotlight/No-celebrations-for-Hauz-Khas-
village/articleshow/12413275.cms) with The Times of India.

What followed was a whirlwind romance between the two, which lived for about a year, before Bina
rushed into an arranged marriage at her family’s behest. “Before I knew it, my parents talked me
into an arranged marriage within a week’s time, while Shammi was in the jungles on his annual
trek. That changed my destiny overnight. My life in San Francisco, New York, and the incredible
lows and highs shaped me as a person. Though today I wish I had questioned the decisions of my
elders. I wish I had the guts to say ‘no’ to a loveless marriage arranged by my parents,” Ramani
said.

Her marriage with Andy Ramani, an Air-India employee based in New York, fell apart 13 years
later. However, by then, Bina Ramani (https://www.celebrityborn.com/biography/bina-
ramani/16580) was already a mother of two girls – Gitanjali and Malini. Along with motherhood
came the responsibility of nurturing two young children, which became herculean post her divorce
with her husband. The divorce didn’t come through easily either. It took four long years in the
courts of Delhi, Mumbai and New York, and it was only after the eminent lawyer and a friend of
Bina’s, Ram Jethmalani, stepped in that the divorce papers came through.

Also read: Financial Freedom Should Be A Common Dream For All The Women And Girls

(https://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2019/11/financial-freedom-the-dream-of-a-common-girl/)

The bad marriage affected Bina, but not her grit and inner and strength. She dealt with Andy’s
abusive behaviour, handing over 80% of her income to him, and raised two daughters single-
handedly. In her autobiography (https://www.womensweb.in/articles/bird-in-a-banyan-tree-bina-
ramani-book-review/), Bird in a Banyan Tree: My Story, Bina says, “We Indian woman are groomed
to believe in a happily ever after scenario. Our self-images are built on it and we have nothing else
to hold on to. Thus, we accept a man no matter what he does.”

Fortunately for her, Bina took the reins of her life in her own hands and returned to India along with
her little girls post her divorce. In order to survive, she set up a business to export garments from
India to the US, which gained her many contacts along the way. What calls for more respect for

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8/28/2021 Who Is Bina Ramani? | Youth Ki Awaaz

Bina Ramani as a person, is the fact that she did it all single-handedly, despite being diagnosed
with cancer, which she miraculously recovered from after surgery.

Her export business was a success. One thing led to another, and by the 90s, Bina Ramani
emerged as the high priestess of Delhi’s elite, a networker hard-wired into the capital’s emerging
culture of socialites. She was no less than an empress with an expansive realm of glitz and
glamour, and an eclectic mix of enterprises beneath her. In terms of sheer profile, few Indian
socialites have had the spotlight on them quite as much as Ramani. Besides travelling and living
all over the world, she opened boutiques, hung out with the international jet-set, partied on plush
yachts, and lived the good life at all the chic parts of the globe.

“Before Bina, there was no figure in Indian society circles, with perhaps the exception of Maharani
Gayatri Devi, who was even known internationally. So far the Indian chatterati has been dominated
by the wives of top industrialists and pudgy actresses. Bina Ramani is a name that changed it all,”
says a close friend of hers. Ramani did change a lot of things. She is the person who first thought
of creating an all-inclusive society, by bridging the gap between the common and the elite – a
dream she turned into reality with the discovery and transformation
(https://pressroom.today/2019/09/28/how-hauz-khas-evolved-underutilized-rural-part-posh-hub/) of
Hauz Khas Village into an artist’s and designer’s delight, a hub for artisans and art connoisseurs.

Bina discovered (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/spotlight/No-celebrations-for-Hauz-

Khas-village/articleshow/12413275.cms) Hauz Khas Village in March 1987. Reminiscing of the
time, Ramani says, “At that time, it was a tiny, sleepy little village in the heart of south Delhi with
this magnificent Mughal era aura around it. I wanted to open a store and that’s how I discovered it.
And at that time only I realised that we could turn it into a beautiful hub of design and culture, and
look at what it has become today. It’s an incredible place. It’s a truly international place with all
sorts of flavours and influences. For me, it’s my Goa in Delhi. But I have to say that the village
head there, his name was Choudhary Raghuvir Singh, he co-operated a lot with us. He was a fine
gentleman because of whom we could make it what it has become.”

She even envisaged a grand celebration commemorating the silver jubilee of the discovery of
Hauz Khas Village in 2012, “I envisaged a three-week-long celebration of the culture and spirit of
the village. I thought we could request for the monuments to be opened up for a few days so that
we could host Sufi concerts there. I’d also spoken to a few ambassadors to see if we could host
food festivals at the village during the celebrations.” However, the plans came to nought as the
villagers didn’t want unnecessary attention, a reason that Ramani respected.

Around the time she transformed Hauz Khas and Mehrauli with her Midas touch, Bina Ramani also
found a soul mate in Georges Mailhot, who she later tied the knot with. All was perfect in the little
paradise Bina had created for herself, until the fateful night of 30 April 1999, when model Jessica
Lall was shot dead Ramani’s bar. The incident shook her to the core, and what followed was a
seven-year-long struggle with the media, judiciary, powerful politicians, and the Indian masses.

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“It was a very traumatic period for my family and me. There came a time when close friends told
me to give in to the threats I received, take whatever was being offered and leave the country for
my own safety and well-being! But I had to be true to myself and respect my integrity. I stuck to the
truth, paid a heavy price,” says Bina Ramani while remembering the turbulent times.

Though her stance put her behind the bars, it didn’t deter her spirit. Years after the case was
closed and the verdict was given by the court, Bina decided
(https://www.rediff.com/news/1999/may/07bina.htm) to let the people know about her side of the
story. The idea culminated into her well-received autobiography, Bird in a Banyan Tree. The book
presents a binding narrative of her life, all in her own words.

Today, Bina Ramani is living a quaint life with her husband and extended family. Being the art
connoisseur that she is, Bina is a frequent attendee of art exhibits. Her latest enterprises include
Malabar Secrets, a venture aimed at enhancing the quality of life by creating a perfect interplay
between leisure and health. Bina Ramani is also an active participant in humanitarian causes and
is associated with ‘People Against Rapes in India’ (PARI).

Despite the turmoil she has faced throughout the years, Bina Ramani holds the same fervour for
life that she had as a girl. Her charming personality, combined with her self-reliance and sheer
perseverance, is truly an inspiration for many.

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