Prakash Jha has finally relented to Nana Patekar's pleas begging forgiveness and has decided to forgive, if not forget Nana's behaviour
Prakash Jha has finally relented to Nana Patekar's pleas begging forgiveness and has decided to forgive, if not forget Nana's behaviour.
"It's impossible to forget what he did. But Nana has been constantly trying to reach out since the ugly incident.
I've told him I'll have a cup of tea with him when I return to Mumbai tomorrow. Today is my last day of Rajneeti." Prakash said from Bhopal on Wednesday afternoon.
Will dub, won't shoot
In fact, Prakash had decided to not allow Nana to dub his lines. "Now I'll let him dub. But there's no question of shooting the scenes that he lost out on."
Earlier Prakash was unrelenting. "I know I said there was no question of a rapprochement. Nana Patekar was a closed chapter for me. My entire crew tolerated him because of me. But he's lonely and he accepts his mistake.
I can't sit in judgment on him."
The director has already changed the script to make do without Nana and has added a voiceover, " I had to shoot six to seven scenes of Nana as a young man. I changed the scene and shot it without him. When I had worked with Nana in Apaharan, I hadn't seen this tantrum-throwing side of him on the sets."
Had no choice
After his initial outburst, Nana tried to make amends. Recalls Prakash, "Later that day, he calmed down and tried to return to the sets. I told him he wasn't welcome ever on my sets. As far as shooting goes, we had to compromise. We had to complete all his scenes without him. We introduced a voiceover to explain his absence.
Jha concludes, "I had no choice but to forgive him. You don't know how much I've looked after him. I've stood by him through all his temper tantrums and bad moods. But I can't allow him to walk all over me. He needs to do something about his temper. "
Lekin, hua kya tha?
On October 27, during the shooting of Rajneeti, Prakash and Nana had a huge showdown in Bhopal over the way the actor was supposed to do a scene. The actor left in a huff after showering abuses on Prakash. Though used to Nana's abusive ways, Prakash wasn't willing to take the barrage of insults lying down. He took up Nana's offer of letting the actor go and also vowed never to be friends with Nana again. But the actor kept pleading.
