DEHRADUN: Veteran actor Nana Patekar, known for his intense performances and unfiltered candour, died of cardiac arrest at his residence in Goa on Thursday morning. He was 75.
According to Manipal Hospital, he was found unconscious at his home in Dona Paula and was declared dead at 5.20 am after 45 minutes of CPR failed to revive him.
While the nation mourns the loss of the three-time National Award winner, Uttarakhand remembers him for a different reason — as a man who fell in love with its mountains and wished to make them his home.
The memories date back to a nine-day Marathi film shoot in the border district of Chamoli.
“For nine days, he shot in the Niti Valley, close to the China border,” former Joshimath SDM Kumkum Joshi told TNIE.
Patekar, who played the lead role, had arrived in Joshimath with his crew for a film being made under the banner of Coconut Motion Pictures by producer Rishman Majethia. The unit camped in Lata and Malari villages, with scenes filmed in Niti village, Tapovan and Lata.
“He then left for Guptkashi in Rudraprayag by helicopter,” Joshi recalled.
At the Army brigade stationed in the high-altitude area, he met officers and jawans. Speaking to Marathi- and Telugu-speaking soldiers in their respective mother tongues, he had them in splits, officials said.
Locals, too, remember his simplicity.
“He asked us about our lifestyle, our clothes and our weather,” said Dev Singh Rana of Malari. “He said the valleys here are extremely beautiful and that he wanted to buy land and build a house here.”
Aggi Rana, another resident, said, “Nana Patekar is a very simple-natured person.”
Mahendra Chauhan, who spent about 15 minutes with the actor, said, “He asked about our pilgrimage and tourist places.”
Joshi said she had met him during the shoot and presented him with local apples and walnuts as a token of the region’s affection.
In the film, Patekar played the role of a father, with actor Siddharth playing his son.
The house he dreamt of in the Himalayas never materialised. But in Joshimath’s bylanes and the meadows of Niti, the memory of the star who wanted to be a neighbour lives on.
