Rest between exercise

A dog catches a wink while boys around him put their back into a workout session at Shivaji Park. 

‘Don’t be an Amol Palekar in today’s world’

(From left) Meenakshi Shedde, Amol Palekar and Sandhya Gokhale in conversation at a Worli venue. PIC COURTESY/CHINTAN JADIA

The veteran, critically acclaimed actor had these words of advice for young audience members at a discussion around his book Viewfinder: A Memoir (Westland Books) in Worli on Thursday. In conversation with film curator and Sunday mid-day columnist Meenakshi Shedde for Asia Society India Centre, Palekar took a walk down memory lane with wife and creative partner Sandhya Gokhale. “One of the more interesting anecdotes was hiding right in the title of the book. Back in the day when there were no monitors on film sets, directors used viewfinders. Director Hrishikesh Mukherjee had passed on his viewfinder to Palekar, a moment he holds dearly. What’s more, the viewfinder originally belonged to Mukherjee’s guru, director late Bimal Roy,” Shedde told this diarist. In discussion about his career outside Hindi cinema, Palekar admitted to his reservations about playing the same character in repetitive performances of plays. “He’s the kind of artiste who is always on the lookout for something new,” Shedde added. Among questions Palekar might not have seen coming was a young media student who asked him how one could ‘be like Amol Palekar’. This diarist learnt that Palekar was quick to quip that she was better off not trying, adding that his free-spirited outlook when it came to work might not fare well in today’s world.