Aziz Mirza Remembers Nana Patekar’s Jai and Their Unmade Film

A small Shree 420 figure grew into Jai

Aziz Mirza traces the seed of Nana Patekar’s Jai in Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman back to a much smaller creation: the beggar, or urchin, played by Kumar in Shree 420, a star known to audiences in the 1930s and 1940s. Mirza and his team took that compact character and expanded it into a full role.

Patekar was not immediately sold on the part. Mirza remembers him “hemming and hawing,” unsure about committing. Once he said yes, the actor gave Jai a personality and humour that the director says belonged entirely to him — an irreverent observer of a world full of irony.

Straight-faced wit and a Cabaret-inspired sequence

The dialogue Jai delivers could have been absurd in other hands. Mirza says the lines also spoke to the world Jai inhabited: a man who had seen enough of life to recognise its contradictions. Patekar’s straight-faced delivery turned those observations into something memorable. Jai’s warnings about the perils of love, in particular, mixed laughter with a dry, hard-won wisdom.

Musically, the film borrowed an idea from Cabaret. Mirza notes how a character intercuts with “Money, Money” in the classic, and the team tried a similar approach with Patekar in one of their songs. It gave Jai a different kind of presence inside the number.

Nana’s room-locking rehearsal

One production story sums up Patekar’s approach. He had a 7 pm shot, arrived well before, and sat through the shoot. Then he took assistants Manoj Lalwani and Ravi Ojha into a room, rehearsed the scene with them, slept, and woke in time to perform. Mirza’s takeaway is straightforward: Patekar had his own way of preparing, and he wanted to be ready.

The second film that never happened

After Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman, Mirza planned another project with Patekar and another male actor. Patekar would have played a loose cannon, while the other character was an inspector trying to get through to a dreaded dacoit. The only route to the dacoit ran through Patekar’s character. The two men would bicker, clash, and eventually find a working understanding. The film was never made.

Mirza also reflects that Patekar evolved into a better human being over the years — a shift that colours how he remembers both the actor and the role.

Why Jai is worth revisiting

• Watch for Patekar’s straight-faced delivery of absurd but worldly lines.
• Notice the Cabaret-style intercutting in the song sequence.
• Listen for Jai’s line about a creator becoming helpless in his own creation.

That final line has grown more poignant for Mirza. It suggests that even people who appear to have everything figured out can feel trapped by what they have made.

“The man who created this world has become helpless in his own creation. Who do you think you are?”

For 1990s Bollywood fans, Jai remains proof that a supporting character can carry a film’s philosophical weight. Some characters stay with you long after the credits. Patekar’s Jai, Mirza says, is one of them.

Source: Filmfare