Nana Patekar, an actor whose presence defined a particular kind of Hindi and Marathi screen intensity, died at 75 after a cardiac arrest at his home in Goa. He was declared dead at 5:20 am, and the news has drawn tributes from actors, filmmakers and public figures.
Among them, Hema Malini remembered a small, private detail: a missed phone call. The two actors never shared a film, but she said they had stayed in touch over the years. A call from Patekar had come about a week before his death, and she could not answer it because she was travelling.
“When I heard today, I was shocked.”
She added that Patekar was, for her, “an institution for acting.”
Death and farewell
Patekar’s death ends a career that had become shorthand for controlled intensity, and it closes a body of work that now moves from news to retrospectives.
- Died at 75 after a cardiac arrest at his Goa home; declared dead at 5:20 am.
- Cremated with full state honours at his Donje farmhouse in Pune on Thursday.
- His son Malhar lit the funeral pyre; chants of “Nana Amar Rahe” filled the farewell.
- Jackie Shroff, Sajid Nadiadwala, Anil Sharma and Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde were among those who paid respects.
Hema Malini’s post on X called Patekar an icon and remembered his “tireless work for the Naam Foundation,” which supports farmers and underprivileged communities. She also wrote that Patekar had once told her she was his favourite actress in classic cinema.
Why this lands for our readers
For an audience that follows Hindi cinema closely and cares about its history, Patekar’s passing is the kind of loss that resets a timeline. He was not a conventional leading man; his presence was built on phrasing, silence and the ability to make discomfort readable.
The missed call matters because it changes the register of the obituary. It is not only a list of achievements; it is also a reminder of how thin the gap can be between an ordinary week and an ending. Hema Malini’s recollection gives the news a human scale, while the state honours at his farmhouse show how the industry and the state chose to frame the goodbye.
What remains is the work: the Hindi and Marathi films, the actor’s craft and the Naam Foundation’s record. The full accounting of that work will belong to our retrospectives.
Source: bollywoodHungama.com
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