Nana Patekar Dies at 75; His Mother’s Blunt Award Verdict

Veteran actor and filmmaker Nana Patekar has died at the age of 75. He suffered a severe cardiac arrest at his residence in Goa on October 9, and was cremated with full state honours at his farmhouse in Pune.

A resurfaced conversation with Anil Kapoor

After his passing, a 2024 conversation between Patekar and his close friend Anil Kapoor began circulating again. In it, Patekar looked back at one of his biggest professional milestones: the National Film Award he won for his performance in Parinda (1989).

But the memory he shared was not about the trophy. It was about his mother, whose reaction to the honour was far more personal than celebratory.

His mother judged the work, not the award

Patekar explained that after his father died, his mother had little interest in awards or financial success. As he recalled, she would say that the jury had no sense of whom to give an award to. For her, he said, it was simple: “Such dirty, despicable work doesn’t deserve an award.”

She judged his acting through her own rural, everyday perspective, not through the vocabulary of the film industry. Yet Patekar was careful to add that his family never stopped him or discouraged him. That support, rather than approval of a specific award, was what stayed with him.

Why the memory matters

The story reframes a career that often looked intense, abrasive and uncompromising on screen. Patekar began with Gaman in 1978 and built a body of work across Hindi and Marathi cinema that ran until very recently.

• Breakthrough: Parinda (1989), which brought him a National Film Award
• Defining roles: Prahaar, Krantiveer and Ab Tak Chhappan
• Mainstream hits: Raajneeti and Welcome
• Later films: Vanvaas, Housefull 5, O Romeo and Sankalp

For fans, the resurfacing of this memory is a reminder that Patekar never seemed to perform for validation. He worked, and the work was the point. His mother’s bluntness now reads less as rejection than as the honesty of a family that loved him outside the frame.

Source: The Times of India