Sabira Merchant: A life lived head on
Sabira Merchant is an actor and etiquette trainer who is celebrated for founding the famous nightclub, Studio 29, in her home city of Mumbai, India.
In India, Sabira Merchant is a name associated with sophistication and elegance – she’s an etiquette trainer who has coached big-name stars including Priyanka Chopra and Lara Dutta. Hers has always been a life lived head on. As a girl, she was sent to a Swiss finishing school, and she went on to marry and have children as was expected of her. But in the 1960s, when her children were still small, she took up acting, becoming a renowned thespian in Mumbai. In the 1970s she became nationally famous as host a TV quiz show, What’s The Good Word? – the first English-language show of its kind in India. She went on to open a famous nightclub in Mumbai, Studio 29, which was where the city’s elite partied in the 1980s. Now aged 80 she published her memoir, A Full Life (2022).
Presenter: India Rakusen
Producer: Jo Impey and Hetal Bapodra
Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com or WhatsApp +44 330 678 2707
Photo: Sabira Merchant Credit: Sambha Vora
Last on
Broadcasts
- Thu 20 Jul 2023 11:06GMTÂ鶹ÊÓƵAV World Service
- Thu 20 Jul 2023 17:06GMTÂ鶹ÊÓƵAV World Service except East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa
- Thu 20 Jul 2023 21:06GMTÂ鶹ÊÓƵAV World Service East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa only
- Fri 21 Jul 2023 02:06GMTÂ鶹ÊÓƵAV World Service
Contact Outlook
Info on how we might use your contribution on air
Podcast: Lives Less Ordinary
Step into someone else’s life and expect the unexpected