For Natsamrat director Mahesh Manjrekar, Nana Patekar’s passing is not simply a public loss. It is a personal one, and he measured it against the most intimate benchmark he knows: the death of his parents.
“This is the biggest loss for me after my mother and father,” Manjrekar said in an exclusive conversation with Hindustan Times.
The two were connected long before either was famous. Manjrekar traces the friendship back almost 42 years, to their theatre days. On one early visit to a film set, a crew member tried to shoo the two unknowns away. Patekar’s response left a lifelong impression.
“Someone tried to shoo us away from the sets because we were not known back then and he lost his cool,” Manjrekar recalled.
That protectiveness never faded. It simply moved from film sets to family life.
A nickname that became family
In Natsamrat, Patekar called Medha Manjrekar “Sarkar.” The name did not stay on screen. Manjrekar said Patekar used it in real life and kept checking on Medha after her cancer diagnosis. Those small check-ins are the details that explain the depth of this grief.
Manjrekar was also hoping to direct Patekar again. The challenge, he said, was not interest or availability—it was finding a subject that could justify the actor’s talent.
Why this matters for Marathi cinema
Manjrekar described Patekar as one of the pillars of the Marathi film industry, alongside Vikram Ghokhale. Losing both, he said, feels like losing the supports of a screen culture that had leaned on them for decades.
Even as newcomers, Manjrekar said, they considered Patekar the pride of Maharashtra. That status never left him, and it is why the loss is being felt beyond one film or one city.
The details fans will remember
- Manjrekar ranks the loss only after his mother and father.
- The friendship began in theatre almost 42 years ago.
- Patekar called Medha Manjrekar “Sarkar” after Natsamrat.
- He kept checking on Medha after her cancer diagnosis.
- Manjrekar wanted one more film but never found the right subject.
For celebrity watchers, the takeaway is in the timeline. The best public stories often start in obscurity, and the moments that later feel cinematic—an early set visit, an angry defence, a nickname that sticks—become the real biography. Manjrekar and his wife had been planning to meet Patekar just days before the news, which makes the tribute less a career retrospective and more an unfinished plan.
Source: Hindustan Times
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