Farewell to Nana Patekar, the silver screen’s eternal man

Acting often gets associated solely with rousing dialogues, and Nana Patekar, with his rich baritone, ticked that box. But acting is also about restraint and pause, and Patekar nailed that too in a staggering career that saw him play hero, villain, character actor and even the odd comedy role.

He caught national attention with the 1989 flick Parinda, a caustic portrayal that sent shivers down many a spine in packed theatres. The actor, with his rustic charm and ruthless intensity, had found a larger audience.

Yet, he refused to be slotted as a unidimensional star. In Khamoshi, he played a deaf-and-dumb character, negating his primary strength of fabulous dialogue delivery. And in that 1996 outing, he again proved his gravitas as a performer.

Acting is not always about the movement of the hands accentuating the words that are uttered, it is also about what the eyes convey in a tight close-up. Patekar could own a frame; his eyes could move from smouldering anger to soul-numbing sorrow in a second.

Nana Patekar passes away | LIVE updates

Feted for many performances, Patekar was the seemingly eternal man on screen. In 2004, as a cop with a mission in Ab Tak Chappan, the vulnerability he revealed when his wife, played by Revathi, is killed is one for the ages. The arc between a policeman supposed to hide his emotions and a husband losing the love of his life, was dealt with pathos and perfection.

It is never easy to cope with Rajinikanth’s magnetic screen presence, which can get overwhelming for his fellow actors. But in the 2018 Tamil movie Kaala, Patekar held his own space, just like Mammootty did earlier in Thalapathi. Patekar was his own man too in Kohram, a 1999 film that had Amitabh Bachchan as his co-star.

Infinite patience as a cook while he indulged in the kitchen, and slivers of anger in real life, were all part of the Patekar personality. Proud of his Marathi roots, Patekar could be all exuberance too, as he did in Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman in 1992, a film in which he shared screen-space with Shah Rukh Khan.

Clued into literature, both global and regional, Patekar did a fine turn in Diksha. The 1991 Hindi film was based on U.R. Ananthamurthy’s Kannada classic Ghatashraddha. The movie, rooted in a Karnataka village with its caste dimensions, offered Patekar another opportunity to smoulder and simmer, and still be vulnerable. In his passing, Indian filmdom has lost an astounding actor, whose legacy will keep shining bright.