Veteran actor Kabir Bedi had penned down unheard aspects about his life in his autobiography titled ‘Stories I Must Tell: The Emotional Life of an Actor’. He wrote the book during the lockdown owing to the coronavirus pandemic and released it in April. 

The 74-year-old actor has touched upon various aspects of his life that were either controversial or not known to many and one such aspect is recalling his late son Siddharth’ death by suicide in 1997 after being diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Also read: No one can direct it better than me: Kangana on her new film ‘Emergency’

“Siddharth was a very brilliant young man… He was exceptional in his abilities, and then suddenly, one day, he couldn’t think. We tried so hard to first figure out what was wrong, and for three years, we battled these unknown ghosts, and eventually he had this extremely violent breakout in the streets of Montreal, and it took eight policemen to nail him down. And then, the doctors in Montreal finally diagnosed him as schizophrenic,” he said.

He added that despite giving their all to battle Siddharth’s illness, ‘he lost as Siddharth chose to go’.

Also read: Minissha Lamba reveals why she will never date an actor

In one of his old interviews, he shared how he wanted his son not to give up believing in a better future.

“People commit suicide for many reasons: real desperation, imagined desperation, extreme depression or mental imbalance, and, in some cases, it’s a carefully considered decision. Be that as it may, I can only speak of what I experienced when my son Siddharth committed suicide at the age of 25. He had graduated from Carnegie Mellon University, with honours in Information Technology, just as the information age was dawning in 1994.

Also read: Here’s why actor Salman Khan was scared to work with Govinda

“The best opportunities in the world awaited him. But, within two years, while doing his Masters at Chapel Hill in the University of North Carolina, something went terribly wrong. Depression was the first diagnosis, but it turned out to be far worse: schizophrenia,” he said that time.

The actor says that “he came to live with me in Los Angeles, where we tried to have him treated.”

Also read: Actor Sharon Stone alleges she was sexually abused by her grandfather as a child

 “Siddharth had times of great clarity, and times when I didn’t know who I was talking to. After a year, his frustrations came to a boil. He had researched his ailment on the internet and was dismayed by the probabilities of life ahead of him. I tried my best to give him all the hope possible. It didn’t work. He slipped into greater withdrawal and depression,” he said in an interview with Free Press Journal.