After veteran actor Nana Patekar’s sudden demise at the age of 75, social media has been full of memes and dialogues from his popular Hindi films like Krantiveer (“Bata isme Hindu ka khoon kaun sa, mussalman ka kaun sa”) and Welcome (“Control, Uday, control”). But there was more to Nana than a maverick actor who is remembered for his bombastic dialogues.
Born on 1 January 1951, Vishwanath Patekar came from a humble family in Murud-Janjira in Maharashtra's Raigad district. The family moved to Dadar, Mumbai when he was in his teens. His father Gajanan Patekar had a printing press which was usurped by a rival, forcing Vishwanath to start working at age 13.
After his father’s premature death, his mother Nirmala struggled to bring up Vishwanath and his brothers Ashok and Dilip alone. Times were tough, and it was a challenge for Nirmala to keep the brothers away from a life of crime. Her family had a criminal background as Nana revealed in an interview with Saurabh Dwivedi on Lallantop.
After finishing school, he managed to get admission in the prestigious JJ College of Applied Arts in Mumbai. For a while he did odd jobs, such as painting posters and zebra crossings, for sustenance. He left his job and started doing Marathi theatre full time in the early 1970s—taking on a new identity as ‘Nana.’
His seniors in Marathi theatre—Vijaya Mehta, Vijay Tendulkar, Shreeram Lagoo, Arvind and Sulabha Deshpande—mentored him. Co-actors Ashok Saraf and Vikram Gokhale supported Nana during his days of struggle.
Hamidabai chi Kothi, a play written by Anil Barve and directed by Vijaya Mehta, and Purush written by Jaywant Dalvi, are two Marathi plays that are remembered for Nana’s extraordinary performances.
The Man Off-Screen
Nana wore many hats—artist, activist, social worker, and philanthropist. To prepare for his outstanding directorial debut Prahaar (1991), Nana trained with the Maratha Light Infantry for three years, following which he was inducted into the territorial army as an honorary Captain. He retired as Lt Colonel in 2013.
He was so passionate about defending the nation that he took special permission from the then Defence Minister George Fernandes to serve in the 1999 Kargil War. He served under the Quick Reaction Team of commandos.
Speaking to Amitabh Bachchan on Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) recently, Nana asserted that he didn’t belong to Mumbai, but to his village. He finished every acting assignment and returned to his village, where more pressing matters demanded his attention.
In 2015, moved by the plight of the families left behind by farmers who had died by suicide, Nana set up NAAM Foundation with his actor-friend Makarand Anaspure. Nana confessed that at first he was tempted, as are most of us when we feel charitable, to simply write cheques of Rs 15,000 each to the families of those affected, out of his savings of Rs 1.5 crore.
He soon realised that this one-time measure wasn’t enough, and that he needed to devote time to the cause of farmers in the arid regions of Maharashtra, where crops were dying due to drought.
Under his leadership, NAAM Foundation raised Rs 60 crore within two months of its setting up, and never looked back. As per its latest annual report 2022-24, the foundation has helped over 1,034 villages of Maharashtra in their water conservation efforts, which includes revival of over 492 streams and water bodies. The foundation now works all over India.
Proving His Mettle As An Actor
Coming back to his acting career, which was but one aspect of his life, Marathi theatre proved to be a stepping stone towards Hindi cinema. After his supporting roles in films such as Muzaffar Ali’s Gaman (1978), Nana’s breakthrough performance in Hindi cinema as the new ‘angry young man’ came in N Chandra’s film Ankush (1986). This was followed by his performance as a ruthless drug-dealer in Mira Nair’s acclaimed film Salaam Bombay (1988).
Vidhu Vinod Chopra was the first ‘new-age’ director who gave him a big break in commercial cinema with his role as the eccentric mafia don Anna in Parinda (1989). The performance earned him his first National Award for cinema. Mehul Kumar gave him a string of roles in the blockbusters Tiranga (1992) and Krantiveer (1993)—the latter film earned him his second National Award—as also Kohraam (1999) with Amitabh Bachchan. Director Aziz Mirza tapped Nana’s funny bone, giving him the role of the sutradhar (narrator) in Raju Bann Gaya Gentleman (1992).
Nana actively resisted being typecasted. Owing to his theatre background, he could effortlessly slip into any character. If he could play the tough-as-nails encounter specialist cop of Shimit Amin’s 2004 film Ab Tak Chhappan, he could also be the romantic poet of Amol Palekar’s 1990 film Thodasa Roomani Ho Jayen.
If on one hand he was the famed Mumbai cop Rakesh Maria in Ram Gopal Verma’s 2013 film The Attacks of 26/11, he could also be the lovable don with anger issues, Uday, in Anees Bazmee’s Welcome (2007). Nana was the taxi driver leading a double life in Milan Luthria’s comedy thriller Taxi No. 9 2 11 (2006), and the unscrupulous builder Majid Khan of Shashilal Nair’s Angaar (1992).
In 1996, Nana played the speech and hearing impaired father of Manisha Koirala in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s debut film Khamoshi, and in the very same year, he earned a National Award for playing the possessive-obsessive husband of Manisha Koirala in Agni Sakshi, one of the many unofficial Hindi remakes of the 1991 Hollywood blockbuster Sleeping With The Enemy.
Nana’s iconic dialogue “Ek machchar saala aadmi ko hinjra bana deta hai” (one mosquito bite can render a man impotent) in the 1997 film Yeshwant, was released as a musical track. Nana also recited “Kaise Bataaoon Main,” a love letter addressed to Madhuri Dixit’s character in the film Wajood (1998), that was penned by Javed Akhtar.
While performing a myriad of roles in Hindi cinema, Nana was also blazing new paths in Marathi cinema.
In 1979, he acted in Jabbar Patel’s Simhasan which also starred theatre veteran Mohan Agashe. Deool (2011), winner of three national awards, had a memorable performance by Nana. He won a Marathi Filmfare award for Dr. Prakash Baba Amte (2014).
However, his crowning glory could well be Mahesh Manjrekar’s Natsamrat (2016) a role for which, his fans claim, he deserved nothing less than a National Award. He co-produced Aapla Manus (2018) with Ajay Devgn, and also played the titular role. Two films of Nana’s which are as yet unreleased, are Eetha and Shakti Shalini.
For me, a role which came quite close to Nana’s real-life persona, was in Gulzar’s 1999 film Hu Tu Tu. Nana played Bhau, a poet-activist who works in a Dalit basti (settlement). Bhau serves his community without seeking any power or glory in return. He is the voice of conscience and exhorts the self-serving and unscrupulous politician Malti Barve played by Suhasini Mulay, to do something for her community. Bhau constantly reminds Malti that public servants have become the new rulers of the nation.
At one point, he begs her—"Kyun bai, five-star hotel banwa rahi hai? Badshah toh sarai banate they, pyaoo lawgate they. Tu pump lagwa de, nal lagwa de basti main. Log duayein denge." (Sister, so you are making a five-star hotel? Kings used to make inns for travellers, set up drinking water kiosks. You should get a hand pump or a tap installed in your own village for bringing drinking water to the people. People will bless you).
Popular or Pariah?
Nana’s life was an open book. His personal life was controversy-prone, but those close to him maintain that it was Nana’s habit of speaking his mind without any hesitation. Accused of being temperamental, Nana is remembered for having had loud arguments on sets with directors Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Sanjay Leela Bhansali (neither director worked with him after their first film with Nana).
People had warned director Mehul Kumar that casting Nana Patekar and Raaj Kumar would mean double trouble, but the two mercurial thespians got along like a house on fire, and delivered a hit with Tirangaa.
Nana once chided Shah Rukh Khan on the sets of Raju Ban Gayaa... for obsessing over his hairstyle. He also once asked co-actor Sonali Kulkarni to remove her makeup, during a costume trial. Both actors fondly remembered Nana’s interventions in their tributes; acknowledging that he said these things only because he was a true-blue professional.
While he was separated from his wife Neelkanti, Nana reportedly had romantic relationships with co-actors Manisha Koirala and Ayesha Jhulka. In 2018, Nana was publicly accused of sexual harassment by Tanushree Dutta, which had allegedly taken place on the sets of film Horn OK Pleassss in 2008. Nana denied the allegations. In 2019, police closed the case citing insufficient evidence and possible malicious intent. In 2025, a Mumbai court dismissed the plea, citing lack of substantive grounds for prosecution.
Towards his last days, he worked all day on his farm. He cooked and cleaned for himself. The son-of-the-soil Nana was never comfortable in the mayanagri (city of illusions) that is Mumbai.
Nana had friends across political parties, but he refused to join any party. Keeping distance from politics gave him the freedom to express his views fearlessly.
Recently, at a public function in Maharashtra, he remarked to some politicians who were seated on the dais with him, that politicians’ own family members sometimes broke the law casually while they expected citizens to faithfully obey all rules and regulations.
Nana’s clarion call to every public servant in Hu Tu Tu—“Bai, kuchh kar” (Sister, do something)—is the prayer of a patriotic Indian. If all of us perform our duties diligently, that would be a genuine tribute to the Aapla Manus (our man); a man who always spoke truth to power, on and off screen.
(Nirupama Kotru is a senior civil servant. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)