Instagram link: https://www.instagram.com/nascent_carbon/

Parveen Babi (4 April 1949 – 20 January 2005) was an Indian film actress, model, and an interior designer. She is most remembered for her appearances in several commercially-successful films, and playing mostly bold roles throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. Regarded as one of the most glamorous actresses throughout Hindi cinema, she was also one of the highest paid actresses of her time.

With a film career spanning 15 years, Babi appeared in more than 50 Hindi films with a variety of genres. She made her debut in 1973 with the film Charitra, and had her breakthrough with the films Majboor (1974) and Deewaar (1975), where she then garnered the reputation of a successful actress. Babi was notorious for breaking various cultures and stereotypes among few actresses, and was also the first Indian to have appeared on the cover of Time magazine.

Babi retired from the film industry in 1985. She had remained unmarried after a string of relationships with Kabir Bedi, Danny Denzongpa and Mahesh Bhatt. She was diagnosed with diabetes later in her life, and died of multiple organ failure on 20 January 2005.

She was found dead on 22 January 2005 after her residential society secretary alerted the police that she had not collected milk and newspapers from her doorstep for three days. The police suspected that she may have been dead for up to 72 hours before her body was found. The cause of her death was not immediately known. She was found to have gangrene of the left foot as a complication of her diabetic condition. A wheelchair was found near her bed and a series of disarranged paintings, clothes, medicines and old newspapers. She had a bandage on her left foot, that she had put on, to treat her gangrene which had resulted from a long ailment of diabetes. It is possible that she was unable to walk in her last days due to a gangrenous foot and required the use of a wheelchair to move inside the house. A post-mortem was conducted at Cooper Hospital and reports showed that there were no traces of food in her stomach, but some alcohol (possibly from her medication) was found and it is possible that she had not consumed anything for more than three days and as a consequence starved to death. The police ruled out any foul play and it was determined she succumbed due to total organ failure and diabetes. Mahesh Bhatt said For Me, She Died Twice, once when she had the mental breakdown and now. I owe everything that I am today to my brief association with this magnificent woman. She was a rebel who lived life on her own terms, died on her own terms. Parveen Babi converted to Christianity during the last years of her life, as she stated in an interview, and was baptised in a Protestant Anglican Church at Malabar Hill. After her death the State Administrator General of Maharashtra became sole custodian of her properties and assets, and took responsibility for the management of them.