Nana Patekar: A Krantiveer in spirit, a Natsamrat on stage and a Welcome legend

Nana Patekar, remembered for his improvised Krantiveer monologue and volatile screen presence, died at 75 after a cardiac arrest in Goa. His death closes a five-decade career that spanned intense performances, comedy and work with distressed farmers.

In Short

• Nana Patekar died at 75 after complaining of chest pain on Thursday
• He was known for intense, unforgettable roles in Hindi and Marathi cinema
• He is remembered for blending anger, humour and empathy in his roles

“Aa gaye meri maut ka tamasha dekhne”

In Krantiveer, Nana Patekar stood before a crowd and asked a question that was larger than the scene, larger than the film: what makes one person’s blood Hindu and another’s Muslim?

The remarkable thing is that the scene was never written.

Nana had simply started speaking.

Years later, he would say he did not remember a single word of what he had said that day. He had been unwell before the shoot, had even been hospitalised with a heart problem, but when the cameras rolled, Pratap came alive. The speech came pouring out of him. What remained on screen was one of Hindi cinema’s most remembered performances.

That could just be the best way to remember Nana Patekar.

Not as a star. Not even as a “legendary actor”, the phrase we reach for when someone dies. But as that rare actor who did not seem to know where the character ended and he began.

On Thursday morning, Indian cinema lost that gaze.

Nana Patekar died at 75 after suffering a severe cardiac arrest at his home in Goa. He was taken to hospital, where doctors tried to revive him for around 45 minutes. He was declared dead at 5:20 am.

There was always something dangerously alive about him. Javed Akhtar once put it beautifully. There was, he said, a “preacher hidden in him”. Bachchan’s anger, Akhtar observed, was: “How could you do this to me?” Nana’s anger was: “How could you do this to the world?”

That difference explains a career that was impossible to put in one box.

The gangster in Parinda. The soldier in Prahaar. The broken teacher in Khamoshi: The Musical. The terrifying cop in Ab Tak Chhappan. The politician in Raajneeti. The ageing theatre actor in Natsamrat. And, because Nana could never be reduced to his intensity, Uday Shetty in Welcome – all bluster, comic timing and wounded pride.

He could make you afraid of him. He could make you laugh at him. And then, in the very next scene, he could make you feel sorry for him.

That was Nana’s peculiar magic. He never acted like he was trying to impress you. He just made you look.

It came from a life that had taught him early what hunger and humiliation meant. Nana began working at 13, walking long distances and surviving on one meal a day. He later called "humiliation and hunger" his two gurus. Theatre came before films, and even after becoming a star, he remained deeply attached to the stage.

Born Vishwanath Patekar on January 1, 1951, in Murud-Janjira in Maharashtra's Raigad district, Nana came from a family that had once been financially comfortable. His father, Gajanan Patekar, ran a textile business, while his mother, Nirmala Patekar, was a homemaker.

But the family's fortunes changed dramatically when they lost their money and property following a betrayal by someone close to them. Nana was still a young boy when the family was pushed into financial hardship. By the age of 13, he had begun working to support them, painting film posters after school and earning around Rs 35 a month, along with a meal. He would later describe "hunger and humiliation" as his two gurus.

That instinct to serve and fight for something bigger than himself would also take him beyond cinema. Nana trained with the Territorial Army and underwent extensive military training while preparing for his 1991 directorial debut Prahaar: The Final Attack, in which he played an Army officer.

During the 1999 Kargil War, he sought permission from then Defence Minister George Fernandes to join the troops. Nana had completed a commando course and told Fernandes about his experience as a national-level rifle shooter. He eventually spent around 60 days with Army personnel, travelling through places including Drass, Leh, Kupwara, Baramulla and Sopore, and became part of a Quick Reaction Team.

He later recalled that he weighed 76 kg when he went in and returned at 56 kg. He rarely spoke about the experience, saying he did not feel the need to talk about it because, for him, it was simply his way of doing "this little bit for the country."

His cinema was as uncompromising as the man. Three National Awards, the Padma Shri, a career spanning Hindi and Marathi films, and a body of work that refused to settle into one image. He acted, directed and wrote, but his greatest contribution was far simpler: he made character acting feel like stardom.

Off-screen, his anger found another purpose. Through the NAAM Foundation, which he co-founded with Makarand Anaspure, he worked with distressed farmers and their families. He once said the cause gave him "one reason to live" and that he was doing it "to keep the human inside me alive."

That could just sum up the way he lived. Because Nana spent his life playing men who were angry at the world, but he never stopped being moved by it.

He had spent more than five decades acting, and he never quite became predictable.

Nana himself once said, “Acting is not just a profession for me. This is how I breathe.” That is why his absence feels so strange.

The characters will remain. Pratap will rage. Anna will stare. Uday Shetty will shout. Ganpat Belwalkar will return to his stage. Somewhere, a television will play Krantiveer again and Nana will once again stand before that crowd, furious, wounded, alive.

Years ago, in an interview with Filmfare, Nana said something else that now sounds almost like an epitaph for himself: “When you die, the world goes on.”

He was right. The world will go on. But for those who watched him, listened to him, laughed with him and were once again made to stop and look whenever he entered a frame, something will always be missing.

The gaze. The voice. The man.

After all these years, those words from Krantiveer will sound more like a farewell: “Aa gaye meri maut ka tamasha dekhne.”

Only this time, Nana, there is no performance left to begin.

- Ends