Pooja Bedi has often spoken about being the rebel child who grew up in an unconventional environment. She is the daughter of veteran actor Kabir Bedi and late danseuse Protima Bedi and it was very early in her childhood that Pooja realised that her mother was quite different from those who would bring up their children with strict rules. In an old interview, Pooja said that as she was growing up she did not smoke, do drugs or drink alcohol which really shocked her parents. In her words, they called her a "backward child" and laughed at her for "being tame." She told Rediff in a 2005 interview, "I never smoked, did not touch drugs like a hippie child, gave up meat for a long time and didn't touch alcohol till late in life. My parents would ask me, 'What's wrong with you? You are such a backward child.' They would laugh at me for being tame. I had a very unconventional upbringing." Pooja said that while her friends had deadlines and curfew time at home, she was never given such rules. The Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander actor added that she once asked her mother to play the "caring mother" who gave her certain rules to follow. "My mother retorted, 'Fine, I'll play the perfect mother if you play the perfect daughter. Everyday, after coming from school, you must oil your hair and touch my feet.' I yelled back, 'That's disgusting.' So, she said, 'What you're telling me to do is equally disgusting'," she recalled. With regard to her clothes, Pooja recalled that when she wore anything "skimpy", her mother would call her "sexy" and wish her to have the best time. She described her home as the "party zone" and said that most of her friends were friends of her parents. "My home was a party zone. In the morning, the amplifier would be burning hot," she recalled. Pooja enjoyed a short lived career in the movies. Her daughter Alaya F is also an actor in Bollywood now.
