“India is like a jealous mistress. She always pulls you back, doesn’t she? Especially Mumbai. It’s my favourite city in the world. The moment you land you go, Ah home. It’s so wonderful.” Nikki Bedi is ecstatic to be back in the motherland after two long years. So what if Kitab Festival 2008, part of the reason why she came, turned out to be a debacle after the organisers of the show alleged they hadn’t been paid for the previous year. And never mind that the “loads and loads of work” Nikki did for her interviews with author M J Hyland and Mahesh Bhatt was a waste with both pulling out of the event. She still ended up doing a full Sunday’s work interviewing writers Indra Sinha, Matthew d’Ancona, Sarfraz Manzoor and Julian West in a back-to-back session.

Nikki is also here to reconnect with her family whom she hasn’t seen since she lost her father three years ago. Slim as a reed in a classic LBD and Louboutin stilettos, the 41-year-old looks fresh as ever. She insists it’s the botox her dermatologist has been giving her in “judicious proportions” for the last 13 years. Close friend and media veteran Jules Fuller — of Channel V and POGO fame — accompanies us as we drive down from Intercontinental to Flamboyante, the new Asian restaurant in Cuffe Parade. The quick-witted banter between the two keeps everyone entertained. Jules recalls an article he had written eons ago for Verve, making fun of television presenters. “He would do that, wouldn’t he,” Nikki chuckles. On the way, she asks the cabbie to stop at a “beedi shop” to pick up a packet of Gudang Garam. It’s like she never left.

Flamboyante’s charming alfresco ambience meets with Nikki’s approval instantly. Between sips of Vodka with nimbu-pani, she remarks on the palpable change in the city. “It seems like there are so many more opportunities. And people’s minds seem open to possibilities and change, whereas earlier there was always an obstacle to everything.” Nikki is confident that the infamous remark by gay rights activist and journalist Ashok Row Kavi about Mahatma Gandhi on her show Nikki Tonight on Star World in 1995 wouldn’t have caused the furore it did back then in today’s liberal times. “We were pushing the envelope and were considered to be the forerunners in what we were doing way back then. Today something like that wouldn’t even scratch the surface.”

The controversy ensured Nikki couldn’t be back in Mumbai for years. Returning to the UK in 2000, she became the face of Universal’s film channel, The Studio. She also hosted two live shows for NOW, Worldwide Screen and Bollywood Now. Currently she does a live radio show for the BBC five times a week besides anchoring a television show called Desi DNA. “If you work at the BBC Asian Network, you get a chance to water your Indian roots by being among Asians all the time. So apart from the British Asian scene in arts and culture and entertainment, whenever artistes or actors come in from India or Pakistan or Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, we cover them, too.” She also does a regular show on Wednesdays called Nikki Meets, where she’s had some “really extraordinary” guests. “I think my only skill in the world is as an interviewer. I’ve found my métier in radio.”

Her most memorable assignment in recent times was meeting Somalia-born Islam critic and former Dutch parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The author of The Caged Virgin has been fighting for the rights of women who would otherwise have their genitals mutilated. Nikki recounts with pride the heady excitement of being among the only three broadcast journalists in the UK to get access to the activist after months of trying. “It was more frightening than interviewing even the prime minister because there were so many death threats as we were in the cab going to this part of the BBC that exists but which we never see. We were getting calls from Secret Service. It was so tripping.”

Controversy is part of Nikki’s DNA. But she feels she has matured as a presenter; she has stopped showing off and become less rash. Alluding to her brash, look-at-me hosting style in her younger years, she says she loved the attention. Besides, as she reasons, there was a culture in television at the time that promoted this self-love. “It still does in certain cases and has its place, but it’s not me anymore. I’ve grown up. ” Jules tells her she’s become a “consummate broadcaster”. Nikki yells excitedly, baby-blue eyes rolling theatrically. “Did you hear that? Jules Fuller just called me a consummate broadcaster. Thank you very much. Compliment accepted!”

Growing up doesn’t mean being less cheeky or not asking risqué questions. But lampooning people or taking the mickey out of them doesn’t make for clever radio or television for that matter, Nikki qualifies. The key, she tells me, lies in gaining the trust of her guests by doing all her homework. A painstaking researcher, she won’t interview an author without reading every book written by the person cover to cover. “Once you’ve got people’s trust, even if you ask them a cheeky question or try to get something about them, whether it’s their politics or their sexuality or something they’re sensitive about, they will trust you. Because they know you aren’t going to abuse that situation. The most extraordinary live radio — provided you’ve done your homework and are in control — happens when things go in a completely different direction from how they were planned.”

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