By Jagmohan Singh Barhok
On His 72nd Birth Anniversary
Om Puri was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He also lacked physical attributes or masculine appeal. Puri hails from Punjab. Born as the youngest of eight children (of whom only two survived). He was underprivileged and undernourished, too. His interest in films, on attaining puberty, took him to NSD. From NSD to TV and Radio and then to FTII Pune where he took acting course and became a friend of Naseeruddin Shah.
He was in dire financial straits when he returned to Bombay. After his short association with Roshan Taneja as a teacher in his acing school, Om started staging plays. It was here that Govind Nihalani happened to witness his performance .Convinced that the young man had sparks of acting in him, cast him in his first film “Aakrosh” to play the hero. The film won national acclaim and recognition for the director as for the actor. Puri won National Award for the Best Supporting Actor .Nihalani repeated him in his “Ardh Satya”( 1983) opposite Samita Patil. With this film his career-graph shot up sky- high. He won Best Actor National Award for the film ,becoming a celebrity from a nonentity. He earlier won another National Award for Best Actor in Shyam Benegal’s “Arohan” .His chemistry was wonderful with Samita Patil (may her soul rest in peace).
A proof of his versatility is that he has acted in films in many languages- English, Hindi, Punjabi, Haryanvi, Bengali, Kannada & Telugu. These include “Gandhi” & “Jewel in the Crown” (English), “Laung Da Liskara” & “Chann Pardesi”( Punjabi); “Bhumika”, “Mandi”, “Nasoor”, “Aghaat”, “Disco Dancer”, “Chachi 420”, “Vijeta”, & “Singh Is King” ( all Hindi). His TV successes include “Tamas”, “Bharat Ek Khoj” & “Kaka Ji Kehan”. “Tubelight” was his last film.
I met the actor during the making of Shashi Lal Nair’s “Angaar” starring Dimple Kapadia ,Jackie shroff in the lead at Lokhandwala Complex, Andheri (W) where huge sets had been erected for the marathon shooting in 1990 and later during the press conference of Shatrughan Sinha’s son Love Sinha’s “Sadiyaan” ( 2010 ) at Hotel Taj, Chandigarh.
