Nana Patekar | The Actor With An Aggression| Statesmen

Some days back I was watching one brilliant movie by Nana Patekar. Prahaar. He is one big show-stealer. With the aggression in his voice and mannerisms, he makes a badly directed movie like Tiranga appear like a gem. Talking about Prahaar; it is a movie about Military Academy and their idealism. Also, it introspect the failure of Civil System in this country. Directed by the Nana Patekar himself, it suggests that for some time, every Indian should be a part of Army (Defense in general).

Nana Patekar is one brilliant actor who can stand with Naseeruddin Shah in current scenario. The power he instills into a character is simply amazing. I remember one amazing performance in movie Wajood (Don’t tell me that you haven’t heard of this name) where he plays the character of a theatre artist. In this particular scene he plays turn-coat aspect of a mentally-sick character. The person in him is a meek fellow who is very shy and reluctant but when he is acting, the artist in him totally hijacks everything around. As a viewer I was mesmerized watching that scene in which my favorite actress Madhuri slowly vanishes in nothing.

Another epic example of mélange was a scene in movie Yeshwant (Ek Machchar Sala… Fame). Yeshwant wants to say sorry to his wife and is waiting for her at her place. He rehearses for his apology and her reply, switching between both skins smoothly. This one scene is enough to fall in love with the actor in him.

Krantiveer is definitely one of the most celebrated movies of this actor but in my opinion any discussion about Nana is incomplete without these three movies- Prahaar, Wajood and Yeshwant. It’s unfortunate that he never got his due, the only reason why it happened is that he lacks the chocolate boy face. He is more like us than the Kapoors and the Khans. Maybe we hate to see the mirror…

Written By: Sujoy Ghosh