Parveen Babi was born on 4 April 1954 in Junagadh, Gujarat. She was an only child in a noble Junagadh-based family who belonged to the Babi tribe of Pashtuns known as the Pathans of Gujarat that had long settled in Gujarat. Parveen was born fourteen years after the marriage of her parents, her father, Vali Mohammed Khan Babi, was a system administrator with the Nawab of Junagadh and her mother was Jamal Bakhte Babi (died 2001). She lost her father in 1959 when she was ten years old. She did her early schooling from Mount Carmel High School, Ahmedabad and later attended St. Xavier’s College, Ahmedabad where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in English literature.

Parveen Babi’s modelling career began in 1972 and was quickly followed by her film debut with the film Charitra (1973), opposite cricketer Salim Durrani. The film was a resounding flop, but Parveen was noticed and was snapped up for several more films. Her first major hit was Majboor (1974), opposite Amitabh Bachchan. Along with Zeenat Aman, Parveen Babi redefined the image of the Indian film heroine in the 70s. She was the first Bollywood star to appear on the front page of Time in July 1976, much to the amazement of her contemporaries. Throughout her career, she was known more as a glamorous heroine and fashion icon rather than a serious actress. Famous designer Manish Malhotra says: “Parveen Babi brought minimalism into fashion. She was always impeccable, not overdoing it even once.”

She later “disappeared” from the film scene in 1983, without informing anyone about her whereabouts, a perception that allowed for exaggerated rumours and pompous claims to be whispered in the industry that she might be “under the control” of figures in the “underworld”. Many of her completed films were released in the following years, right up to her last film Akarshan in 1988.

On 30 July 1983, Parveen Babi left India and the film industry at the height of her career and travelled to various countries for a spiritual journey with U. G. Krishnamurti and her friend Valentine and spent some of the time in California and Houston. On 7 April 1984, she was suspected at John F. Kennedy International Airport after she failed to submit her identification papers and as she behaved to be difficult, the authorities handcuffed her and kept her in a general ward with thirty other mentally disturbed patients. The Indian Consul General, who had been informed of the unfortunate incident, had personally come to visit her at the hospital. During U.G.’s visit, Parveen smiled and chatted with the Consul as though nothing had happened.

Nevertheless, she started a career as an interior decorator in 1983. In 2002, she again hit the headlines when she filed an affidavit in a special court hearing of the 1993 serial bomb blasts case, claiming that she had gathered clinching evidence against actor Sanjay Dutt showing his involvement in the case, but she did not turn up in court after being summoned, saying that she was afraid of being killed. In the last four years of her life, Babi recorded every phone call, always punctiliously informing the caller about surveillance.

She returned to Mumbai in November 1989 where she was unrecognizable as her former self after having put on a considerable amount of weight. She was rumoured to have been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, a mental illness, although she regularly denied this, stating that her being labelled as such was a conspiracy by the film industry and the media to malign her image and make her appear insane, so that they could cover up their crimes. Some sources indicate that it could have been a situation of acute depression, but was not confirmed since she had many failed relationships with one of her former lovers openly humiliating her. This led Parveen to break relationships with most of her close dear ones including her own blood relations, having few contacts with known people and had become reclusive as she distrusted everyone.

In an interview in 1998, she said: “I was born a Muslim and later, I converted to Christianity. But I have never done things I didn’t believe. Even when I was a Muslim, I didn’t understand why it made me a more spiritual entity, if I did not eat pork. I always felt that the essence of spirituality lies in being a good human and following good, positive principles. The Golden Dragon Chinese restaurant at the Taj, those days, was quite famous for pork delicacies and every time I got a break from shooting, I would rush off to the Golden Dragon. Whenever my friends questioned me about my eating pork, I would say that it was more important for me to be a human being than a racist.”

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.