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Unlikely Hero: Om Puri A great actor, and a great biography is guaranteed. Well, not always. Om Puri is without doubt one of the finest actors Indian cinema has seen in recent times. But his biography Unlikely Hero, penned by his other half Nandita Puri, a journalist and a writer, will certainly not rank as superlative. Having said that, let it be known that it is eminently readable, racy even saucy and above all candid, often brutally so. Not merely because it bares the 14-year-old Om’s affaire de amour with 55-year-old maid. Indeed, this skeleton spilling out of his cupboard has rattled many and created a hullabaloo of sorts. Was it necessary? On this metre which Nandita herself prescribes, albeit in another context, it doesn’t really pass muster. For the incident, except for revealing an adolescent’s coming of age, hardly offers any insight into either the man or the actor.
She is equally forthright in zeroing down on many of Om’s foibles. Right from his heavy snoring to his habit of keeping track of money spent, the readers for sure get to meet the man. Personal details, both trivial and significant, abound in ample measure. But the man beneath the surface, despite blunt confessions, remains somewhat hidden. What makes the many-nuanced actor who believes subtext is as important as text is somehow not fully accounted for. The deep yearning surfaces only now and then in the anecdote from his NSD days when he found the gumption to ask Ebrahim Alkazi to give preference to students of acting for lead roles. In Overview of Indian Cinema, you do get acquainted with the actor bristling within but again not completely. His rancour against the star system of Bollywood manifests in the lines, "Ironically, today most of the good character roles (Sarkar, Khakee, for instance) go to the yesteryear stars. The actor pulsates once more in Tips to Actors. Interestingly, in Bollywood, where heroes often acquire larger than life image, the most-notable advice coming from this actor of 200 films is: "Make the best of the situation because a project is bigger than just your role." But these chapters besides the one that lists out his notable films including Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, Chachi 420, Bhavni Bhavai, City of Joy, Gandhi, et al and a complete one on his landmark film Ardh Satya, again are not even half as intense as the intensity with which he blazes the silver screen. Yet, none of it takes away the readability factor of the concise book which has a well laid-out design, format and engaging photographs. Perhaps the writer and the publisher have the vast cine-going audiences as readers in mind, not art critics or highbrow book reviewers. Thus, it refrains from intellectualising and reads simply and directly. If you are an Om Puri
fan, you will devour it. Of course, if you are not, well the book is
unlikely to make you into one. For the book despite flattering
foreword by the late Patrick Swayze and another introduction, In
Appreciation, by Naseeruddin Shah, stirs clear of hero-worshiping.
Yes, Puri does emerge as a fighter and a good human being too who
remembers his debt of gratitude to childhood friends like Naresh
Kaushal as well mentors like Harpal Tiwana from whom he not only got
formative lessons on acting but also on finer things of life like
dining out. However, as on screen, so in life ... Om is no
swashbuckling hero rather unlikely as well as unusual. Like the
credible characters he essays in movies, he is very much for real,
flesh and blood. ... And that is the biggest strength of the biography
that there is little chance you are likely to leave unfinished.
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On
the other hand, one is more intrigued by the fact that in his NSD days
Om fell for Rohini (Hattangadi), now a well-known actor of Gandhi
fame, and had more than one girlfriend. Interestingly, the thinking
man’s actor, whose on screen presence has rarely set female hearts
aflutter, seems to have been quite a woman’s man. And it’s here
that the biographer’s unflinching honesty is revealed. Besides
offering glimpses of her relationship with her gifted husband, Nandita
doesn’t shy away from giving details that any wife would otherwise
not like the world to be privy of. Like his numerous affairs,
including one with a domestic help Om even contemplated marrying,
Nandita who says that the book had been in incubation for 16 years has
been truly impartial. Without doubt this is no awestruck wife writing.
Be it in chronicling events from his childhood years when the actor
literally "born with a wooden spoon" had to fight many
adversities, or in dovetailing the achievements of the actor, known
not only in the Indian cinema but also British cinema where he has
carved a firm niche with movies like My Son the Fanatic and East
is East and earned an Order of the British Empire.