In a career spanning almost 50 years, Nana Patekar never strived to be anything more than an actor. There are stars, there are superstars, and then there are artistes. And that is what made him an artiste, perhaps one of the finest Hind cinema has seen. For a man like him to emerge in the 80s, challenge the notion of what a ‘ Bollywood hero’ is supposed to look like and then change the rules by which the game was played was no mean feat. Nana’s success paved the way for many actors, who did not want to take the ‘road more travelled’ to stardom.
As the 90s rolled in, Nana had established himself as an acclaimed actor. And then, for Parinda, he earned his first National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor. But the tag ‘supporting actor’ stuck. His performances were being praised, but he was almost always cast alongside more ‘saleable’ names in big films. He decided to change that himself.
His appearance in Mira Nair’s Oscar-nominated 1987 film Salaam Bombay earned him praise.
Born Vishwanath Patekar into a Marathi family in 1951, Nana began his acting career in his late 20s. There was no grand launch, no face on the giant poster, but a quiet debut with the 1978 Marathi film, Mimagaman. One of the earliest Hindi films that got him noticed was Aaj Ki Awaz (1984). In 1991, Nana turned director with Prahaar, the story of a retired Army officer who decides to dole out justice in his own way. In 2004, he played his last major leading role in a commercially successful film, Ab Tak Chhappan. In 2008, Tanushree Dutta accused the actor of sexually harassing her on the sets of the movie Horn ‘Ok’ Pleassss. She filed a complaint with CINTAA (Cine & TV Artists Association) that year, repeating the allegation in 2013 and 2018. In 2018, the actor filed a police complaint, and an FIR was registered against Nana.
For Krantiveer, he won the Best Actor National Award. He worked in several Marathi films in the next few years, before playing Nathuram Godse in a small role in the British television series Lord Mountbatten: The Last Viceroy. In the mid-80s, as his acting began to be appreciated, Nana’s screen time increased. And then, two years later, Ankush happened. The film featured Madhuri Dixit alongside Nana, who starred in the lead role himself. The film was a moderate success at the box office and later became a cult favourite on cable TV. Tiranga and Krantiveer completely transformed him into a box office draw in the mid-90s. The former was a masala action film in which he starred alongside the veteran Raaj Kumar. The latter was a social drama in which he played another renegade vigilante. Krantiveer also gave one of Nana’s earliest ‘viral’ scenes. Despite not looking the part and not acting like a star, Nana Patekar was one, now. He was a leading man, now. Throughout the 90s and 2000s, Nana starred in smaller films and appeared in supporting roles in blockbusters, balancing both aspects of his career and refusing to be assigned a single label. Was he a ‘hero’ or a ‘character actor’? Nobody could box him. As accomplished an actor as Nana was, controversy followed him. Nana denied all allegations. This was the beginning of India’s #MeToo movement. However, a year later, Nana was cleared of the sexual harassment charges. Madhoo, his co-star in Yehswant, recalled that he slapped her in a scene without warning, prompting her to slap him back.
In 2018, CINTAA apologised to Tanushree, admitting that the “chief grievance of sexual harassment wasn’t even addressed (in 2008)” but added that since the case was more than three years old, they could not reopen it. The B-Summary report filed by the Oshiwara police station in Mumbai said that the complaint filed by Tanushree Dutta could be “malicious” and “out of revenge”. The actor maintained that it was for the scene, but Madhoo said years later that she felt professional boundaries were crossed.
