Nana Patekar’s death marks the passing of an actor who never quite fitted the conventional idea of a Bollywood star. He was not built around glamour, romantic appeal or a carefully managed public image. His currency was something more difficult to manufacture: presence. When Patekar entered a scene, he could make the scene belong to him. That quality was rooted in theatre. Before cinema made him widely known, Patekar had learned the discipline of voice, gesture and psychological concentration on the Marathi and Hindi stage. It helped produce a screen performer of unusual force.

In Parinda, Prahaar, Krantiveer, Agni Sakshi, Khamoshi and later Rajneeti, he demonstrated that intensity was not a single acting style but a tool that could be adapted to very different characters. His three National Film Awards are therefore more than a measure of professional success. They reflect an actor who repeatedly resisted being reduced to the type he had created for himself. The danger for performers with a commanding screen personality is that audiences eventually see........

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