Tribute: Om Puri will forever live in our hearts

Om Puri 19502017A slightly sozzled Om Puri once knocked at my Kanpur hotelroom door It was well past midnight This is sometime midlast year By then his drunken stories had become kind of legendary especially since his inebriated rant from activist Anna Hazares podium at Delhis Ram Lila Maidan in 2011 I was being super cautious He knocked at the door yet again And once more before I opened He sheepishly handed me a pack of cigarettes with one stick in it Beta youd left this behind he said hugged and leftAakrosh 1980 and Bhavani Bhavai 1980Needless to add those Om Puri drunken tales were noticeable exaggerations No one builds a career with 300plus acting credits over four decades being a reckless alcoholic Earlier that evening wed knocked back a bottle of whisky in his room sitting with a local teetotaler friend of his and here was Om opening up about his buddies and an ailing relative talking to his first wife Seema Kapoor passing on the phone to his friend It seemed like wed known each other foreverSadgati 1981 and Ardh Satya 1983Wholly unaware of his own greatness you could tell there wasnt a false note in his personality much like his performances This childlike inability to separate his private from public life is what endeared Om to all and also landed him in trouble on occasion for one the separation drama with his second wife Nandita that turned into a national jokeViceroys House To Release and The HundredFoot Journey 2014Still at no point did he feel the need to fake gravitas that wouldve come so easily with a gravelly booming voice like his and a career so splendid for an unlikely scrawny leading man that he continued to confound contemporaries and audiences alike Lalu Prasad famously compared Oms pockmarked cheeks from an early bout of small pox to potholes in Patna His success gave hope to countless actors who had only their talent rather than physical beauty to count on And he achieved this through relentless hard work as Naseeruddin Shah fellow actor and former schoolmate at both the Film and Television Institute of India FTII and National School of Drama NSD cant tire of telling everyone Om was the most determined boy in classWest Is West 2010 and Chup Chup Ke 2006He masterfully applied tools of trade to script a resume so staggering in its range that its practically impossible to pigeonhole him as an actor or encapsulate his filmography Intense comes instantly to mind because thats how he boldly broke into the mainstream as playwright Vijay Tendulkars angry young man in Govind Nihalanis Ardh Satya 1983 besides Nihalanis Aakrosh 1980 before and Tamas 1988 after He swiftly oscillated between pucca arthouse Dharavi Mirch Masala to the puerile mainstream as villain Baapji in Sunny Deols Narsimha or Jimmys manager David Brown in Disco Dancer He could seamlessly switch to comedy of the sensible sort Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro Chachi 420 and OTT LOL joining Priyadarshans troupe in Hera Pheri Malamaal Weekly etc Stage was his forte but he cracked television best with The Jewel In The Crown Bharat Ek Khoj but more adorably as Kakaji in Kakaji KahinMalamaal Weekly 2006 and Hera Pheri 2000Basically Om never saw himself as above anything He was a secure egoless artiste often happy to play second fiddle even in parallel cinema Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai Paar How else do you explain that the first Indian actor to truly wow the British indie scene My Son The Fanatic and East Is East genuine gems or land roles in major Hollywood films among others as ZiaulHaq in Charlie Wilsons War more recently lead in Steven Spielberg Oprah Winfreys lovely production The HundredFoot Journey was a thoroughly unpretentious rustic Punjabi who had nearly quit NSD because of an inferiority complex over his poor command in the English language Ibrahim Alkazi NSDs illustrious director held him backEast Is East 1999 and Charlie Wilsons War 2007Om was fine with a minutes role in Richard Atttenboroughs Gandhi 1982 Naseer would settle for nothing but Gandhis part he even declined Maulana Azads Om incidentally featured in the Gandhi clip that eventually played at the Oscars His turn as Hasan Ali opposite Patrick Swayze in Roland Joffes BritishFrench production City Of Joy firmly placed him on the international mart He held both the Padmashree and the OBE As a child Ambalaborn Om grew up washing dishes at a local dhaba often stealing coal from railway tracks to run the family kitchen Only someone whos shattered so many rules of gatekeepers guarding fame and success can walk and talk with such devilmaycare swagger in public and in private He spoke as he saw Sometimes people just got him wrong But thats their problemJaane Bhi Do Yaaro 1983 and Tamas 1988The last time I watched him on TV was as a copanelist on Arnab Goswamis News Hour issuing unreserved apology for a remark on the professional nature of a job in the armed forces He shouldnt have said sorry And he was still being humiliated Some selfproclaimed nationalists take immense pride in insulting our national jewels The video went mildly viral This was not the farewell Om deserved I think the opinionated patriotic thugs running deeply felt obituaries on TV news owe him an apology Yes you too ArnabCity Of Joy 1992 and Gupt 1997One of Oms finest videos being circulated online after he passed away yesterday was the superb Ahuja DMello deadbody scene from Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro Let me add my favourite of the drunk Inspector Velankar in Ardh Satya slowly walking back into the police station hammered yet retaining his composure clenching his fist inside his trouser pocket Flying high yet rooted to the surface That was Om Presciently speaking about how he infinitely feared disease over death he said One day suddenly youll just learn that Om Puri neend mein chal basey Thats how it will be Thats how it was