Vivek Oberoi remembers Nana Patekar, dead at 75

Vivek Oberoi has added a personal note to the wave of tributes for Nana Patekar, the veteran actor who died on October 8 at his home in Goa after a cardiac arrest. Patekar was 75.

Oberoi shared a still from the 2003 horror anthology Darna Mana Hai on X and wrote that saying goodbye felt “incredibly difficult.” For fans, the tribute is a reminder of how tightly the actor’s work is woven into Bombay cinema’s memory.

A father-son filmi connection

The story behind Oberoi’s post stretches across two generations. His father, Suresh Oberoi, shared screen space with Nana Patekar in Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Parinda, released in 1989. Years later, Vivek Oberoi had “the honour of sharing screen space” with Patekar in Darna Mana Hai.

“Dad worked with you in Parinda,” he wrote, “and years later, I had the honour of sharing screen space with you in Darna Mana Hai.” He described the opportunity as a blessing, saying he felt lucky to witness Patekar’s brilliance as a co-star.

Why the loss lands hard

Nana Patekar could unsettle you in one frame and make you laugh in the next. The tributes that followed his death reflect that range. Amitabh Bachchan honoured him on the current season of Kaun Banega Crorepati, highlighting his candour, humility and simplicity. Akshay Kumar, his co-star in the comedy Welcome, mourned him, and Riteish Deshmukh called him “an actor par excellence” while remembering his off-screen charity work. Alia Bhatt wrote that he made audiences “laugh, cry, and feel so much more in between.”

That mixture of high drama and broad comedy is one reason the tributes feel so generationally wide. Hindi and Marathi cinema communities both claimed him, and fans who grew up on different decades of his work have found different reasons to grieve.

A compact watchlist for the weekend

If you want to remember the work rather than only the headlines, the tributes point to three very different registers:

• Darna Mana Hai (2003) for the horror-anthology role that anchors Vivek Oberoi’s tribute.
• Parinda (1989) to see the earlier Oberoi-Patekar pairing that started the family link.
• Welcome for the Uday Shetty comic turn that made him a scene stealer for a new generation.

The off-screen legacy

Beyond the performances, colleagues are remembering Nana Patekar’s quieter work. Bachchan’s tribute noted his efforts to support farmers, and Riteish Deshmukh said the actor “worked tirelessly through his charity for the good of the people.” His last rites were held at his farmhouse in Pune on Thursday with full state honours, a fittingly solemn farewell for an actor whose presence always carried weight.

Source: The Times of India