Nana Patekar, the three-time National Award-winning actor whose five-decade career stretched from Gaman to the broad comedy of Welcome, died on Thursday morning at his residence in Goa after a severe cardiac arrest. He was 75.
He was found unconscious and rushed to Manipal Hospital. Doctors attempted to revive him, but Dr Shekhar Salkar, chief of oncology at Manipal Hospital, said Patekar could not be revived despite 45 minutes of continuous CPR. A medico-legal case has been registered and a post-mortem will be conducted. The Hindi film industry has been plunged into mourning.
A career of extremes
Patekar was honoured with the Padma Shri in 2013 and won three National Awards across a career that began with Muzaffar Ali’s Gaman (1978) and Mira Nair’s Oscar-nominated Salaam Bombay!. His defining films included Ankush, Parinda, Krantiveer, Agni Sakshi, Ab Tak Chhappan and Natsamrat. Across them he played characters with a coiled, explosive edge, which made him one of the most distinctive actors of his generation.
- Screen debut in Muzaffar Ali’s Gaman (1978)
- International notice in Mira Nair’s Oscar-nominated Salaam Bombay!
- Three National Awards and a Padma Shri in 2013
- Defining performances in Parinda, Krantiveer, Ab Tak Chhappan and Natsamrat
The don who wanted to paint
For millions, Patekar’s most beloved late-career turn was Uday Shetty in Anees Bazmee’s 2007 ensemble comedy Welcome: a quick-tempered don trying to become a law-abiding painter. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter India last year, Bazmee described how the casting came together.
When Bazmee said he wanted to pitch a story, Patekar asked how long it would take. Bazmee offered three minutes, thirty minutes, or three hours. Patekar had time that day and asked for the full three-hour narration. By the end, Bazmee recalled, the actor could envision the whole film, his character and the entire cast.
That conversation also became Bazmee’s rebuttal to the industry belief that Patekar was difficult. After the narration, Bazmee said, Patekar hugged him and said he would come to set “like wet clay” and let the director mould him. Bazmee’s verdict: he never faced a single problem, and described Patekar as a wonderful human being and a truly great actor.
Why the memory matters
Patekar’s career bridged the spaces Hindi cinema often treats as separate: arthouse credibility and mainstream comedy. The Welcome joke works because the character is built on a contradiction – a mob boss feared by everyone but desperate for a lawful, creative life. Bazmee’s long narration gave the actor the full shape of that contradiction.
For audiences, the best response is to revisit the work. Welcome shows Patekar’s comic timing; Parinda, Krantiveer and Natsamrat show the weight he brought to drama. The body of work explains why the mourning is so widespread.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter India
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