Om Puri
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Contents |
A profile
The Hindu, January 7, 2016
Namrata Joshi
Puri was born in Ambala, Haryana in 1950.
The performance that made viewers take note of Puri and implanted him in their consciousness was the one in which he barely spoke save that last, haunting scream of anguish..
Face of the marginalised
Those were the days of the zenith of Indian parallel cinema and Puri rode splendidly on the wave alongside virtuoso talents like Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil, among others, and supported by directors like Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani, Ketan Mehta, Kundan Shah and Sudhir Mishra.
“He was like water, taking the shape of every vessel he was put in. He soaked in the generosity and creative influences in his life,” remembers a friend. Some of Puri’s most significant performances in this time were all about the deprived and the disadvantaged.
Contributions to the cinema
The Times of India, Jan 7, 2017
The Hindu, January 7, 2016
Staggering diversity in roles
With Naseeruddin Shah, Smita Patil and Shabana Azmi, Om Puri was part of the Fab Four considered the pin-ups of parallel cinema in the 1970s and '80s. His pockmarked face and lean frame challenged and redefined the idea of a male lead. His early award-winning performances in Shyam Benegal's Arohan and Govind Nihalani's Aakrosh were marked by a hitherto-unseen intensity that had the critics in swoon and the audience in awe.
Several stellar acts also came on the small screen, notably Satyajit Ray's TV film Sadgati, Nihalani's Tamas and Benegal's seminal Bharat Ek Khoj, where he notably played the 13th century Delhi Sultanat ruler Alauddin Khilji and 16th century Vijayanagar King Krishna Deva Raya II. Basu Chatterji's biting political satire Kakkaji Kahin underlined his flair for the funny , first unveiled in the classic feature, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron.
Over the years, Om Puri not only made a seamless transition to mainstream Bollywood (Ghayal, Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha, China Gate, Mrityudand, Chachi 420) but also became one of the most recognizable Asian actors in British cinema (My Son the Fanatic, East is East) and Hollywood (City of Joy with Patrick Swayze, Wolf with Jack Nicholson, to name just two). That he had a 2014 box-office smash, The Hundred-Foot Journey , with Oscar-winner Helen Mirren, is a tribute to his durability and the space he had carved out for himself.
Swayze, co-actor for the much-talked but little-watched City of Joy , once said that Om Puri at least deserved an Oscar nomination for his performance as the rickshaw-puller Hazari Pal. “As an actor he has such diversity and depth. You look into his eyes and you read volumes,“ wrote the Hollywood star in the foreward of Unlikely Hero, a candid biography penned by Nandita, a former journalist.
Not all roles in Hollywood were as substantial; The Ghost and the Darkness and Charlie Wilson's War (where he played Pakistani President Zia-ul-Haq) being two apt examples. But his ouvre abroad only serves to underline the actor's long journey from an impoverished family in hinterland Punjab to one of India's most feted actors ever.
The biography reveals how at the age of seven, Om Puri washed cups and glasses at a tea shop while his father was in prison, how he gathered coal that fell from passing trains for fuel at home and how he took tuitions to support himself after being thrown out of home.
As a child, Om Puri wanted to be a soldier but was gradually drawn towards acting. Impressed by his performance in a Punjabi play , Anhonee, in college, the respected Harpal Tiwana invited him to join his influential theatre group, Punjab Kala Manch, where he took his first serious steps in learning the craft. He was paid Rs 150 per month; part of his job involved fetching eggs and babysitting.
It was a struggle, both social and financial: From overco ming his complexes for not being good at speaking the English language at National School of Drama to gathering funds to sustain himself at Film and Television Institute of India.
But after Nihalani's Aakrosh (1980) and Ardha Satya (1983), arguably the biggest success in the history of alternative cinema, hit the theatres, his hard times were over.
For Om Puri, the real challenge probably lay in finding avenues of creative satisfaction as New Cinema slowly ebbed away . This led him to act in dozens of indifferent movies, ma king many of his fans wonder why the actor of Mirch Masala, Dharavi, Gandhi, Bhavni Bhavai and Bajrangi Bhaijaan, was also working in Bin Bulaye Baraati. Perhaps the scars of the impoverished past remained with him. Perhaps he just loved work. To the actor's credit, he often managed to rise above the script's mediocrity .
Ironically, the performance that made viewers take note of Puri and implanted him in the viewers’ consciousness most strongly and everlastingly was the one in which he barely spoke save that last, haunting scream of anguish. His vacant eyes, gritty face and sheer intensity of presence told the tale of extreme oppression of the underprivileged, victimised tribal person Lahanya Bhiku, the role he became one with in Nihalani’s Aakrosh (1980).
Perhaps Puri’s own struggles in childhood and youth in Punjab brought them alive with a rare verity. Take for instance, the control and dignity with which he essayed the trauma of an untouchable shoemaker in Satyajit Ray’s TV film Sadgati (1981). Or the desperation of the poor land tiller in Shyam Bengal’s Arohan (1982).
When the parallel cinema movement ebbed, he was able to switch effortlessly to the mainstream as well. One the earliest memorable roles was that of the cop in Rajkumar Santoshi’s Ghayal (1990) and then again in Rajiv Rai’s Gupt (1997).
Just as much as the intensity he got identified with, Puri’s perfect comic timing made him win as many hearts. Most prominently as the corrupt, inebriated builder Ahuja in Kundan Shah’s Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (1983), especially in the one long scene with the dead body of Commissioner D’Mello (Satish Shah). Assuming D’Mello’s coffin to be a broken down car he tows him away to his farm house, a moment that makes one double up in laughter till date. He was as incredibly funny as womaniser Banwari Lal in Kamal Haasan’s Chachi 420 (1997) too.
The strength of good actors lies not just in bringing author backed roles to life but in how they make their presence felt even in smaller roles and cameos. One of my favourite Puri performances is in Sai Paranjape’s Sparsh (1980). As the blind man Dubey, never once does he turn the disability into a caricature, as Bollywood is prone to, but lives his visual impairment, physically with all the inner turmoil and anxieties.
Then he towered in the climactic moments of Ketan Mehta’s Mirch Masala (1987), as Abu Mian the guard of the spice of the factory, who gives refuge to Sonbai and is the only man standing with the women against the arrogant subedar and the submissive village. He was the powerful Sanatan in Maachis (1996) the pivot on which rested Gulzar’s problematising of the insurgency in Punjab, on how innocent youth were forced to turn “terrorists” at the altar of the “system”.
Overseas triumphs
Puri was instrumental in being the ambassador of realistic Indian cinema abroad and ended up being part of a number of reputable and also some smaller foreign films, starting with a small role in Richard Attenborough’s epic Gandhi (1982). In Roland Joffe’s City of Joy (1992), he is the unlikely poor migrant pal of Patrick Swayze’s Max.
In Ismail Merchant’s In Custody (1993), he is the Hindi professor who loves Urdu poetry. He acted alongside Jack Nicholson in Mike Nichols’ Wolf (1994). Two smaller but significant turns were in Udayan Prasad’s My Son, The Fanatic (1994) where he is the liberal father of a hardliner son, and Damien O’Donnell’s East Is East (1999), where he is the conservative Pakistani father unable to deal with the generation gap and cultural rift with his half-British kids.
Last, but not the least, Puri was at the head of the quality content on television, in the glory days of Doordarshan, be it the sprawling Partition epic Tamas, Bharat Ek Khoj, Yatra, or the betel-chewing netaji in Kakkaji Kahin.
Somewhere in the midst of it all these media, the original platform — theatre — took a backseat. The last a friend remembers seeing him on stage was in a Punjabi adaptation of the play Tumhari Amrita, called Teri Amrita with Divya Dutta.
Friends remember him as a caring person and a dogged nurturer to his son Ishaan who has a visual impairment. Last few years, though, had not been great. The explicit revelations in the book, Unlikely Hero: The Story of Om Puri, by his second wife Nandita Puri broke him and the marriage as well. There was also a concomitant, unfortunate personal dissolution.
His only consequential presence of late was as the blacksmith sutradhar (narrator) in Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Mirzya last year. And the last straw, perhaps, was how he was humiliated publicly for his contrarian views on the Indian armed forces on television.
Om Puri dabbled in politics, occasionally putting his foot in the mouth. In 2011, he described MPs as “anpadh (illiterate)“ and “ganwar (rustic)“ during Anna Hazare's hunger strike at Delhi's Ramlila Maidan drawing howls of protest. He apologized later. The actor also engaged in a slanging match with a television news anchor over soldiers killed in terror attacks.
Filmography
As an actor
1975 Chor Chor Chhupja
1975 Kalla Kalla Bachitko
1976 Amrita (Short)
1976 An Elusive Dream (Short)
1976 Duniya Chalti Hai (Short)
1976 Ghashiram Kotwal
1976 Khukhari (Short)
1976 Lokayat (Short)
1976 Navjatak (Short)
1977 Bhumika
1977 Godhuli
1977 Smothered Voices
1978 Arvind Desai Ki Ajeeb Dastaan
1978 Bhookh
1979 Saanch Ko Aanch Nahin
1979 Shaayad
1980 Aakrosh
1980 Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Ata Hai
1980 Bhavni Bhavai
1980 Chann Pardesee
1980 Sparsh
1981 Hari Hondal Bargadar : Share Cropper
1981 Kalyug
1981 Sadgati (TV film)
1981 Shodh
1982 Disco Dancer
1982 Gandhi
1982 Vijeta
1982 Waqt-Waqt Ki Baat
1983 Ardh Satya
1983 Arohan
1983 Ashray
1983 Bekaraar
1983 Chokh
1983 Gumnaam Hai Koi
1983 Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro
1983 Mandi
1984 Duniya
1984 Giddh: The Vulture
1984 Maati Maangey Khoon
1984 Paar
1984 Party
1984 Raavan
1984 Ram Ki Ganga
1984 Seepeeyan
1984 Sheeshay Ka Ghar
1984 Shrant
1984 Tarang
1984 The Jewel in the Crown (TV Mini-Series)
1985 Aghaat
1985 Bahu Ki Awaaz
1985 Debshishu
1985 Holi
1985 Khandaan (TV Series)
1985 Nasoor
1985 Paththar
1985 Sanjhi
1985 Zamana
1986 Antaheen
1986 Genesis
1986 Katha Sagar (TV Series)
1986 Long Da Lishkara
1986 New Delhi Times
1986 Raag Darbari (TV Series)
1986 Shahadat (Video)
1986 Tamas (TV Mini-Series)
1986 Yatra (TV Series)
1987 Goraa
1987 Marte Dam Tak
1987 Mirch Masala
1987 Susman
1988 Achanak
1988 Bharat Ek Khoj (TV Series)
1988 Dharam Yuddh (TV Series)
1988 Ek Hi Maqsad
1988 Hum Farishte Nahin
1988 Kakaji Kahin (TV Series)
1988 Puravrutham
1989 Darshana
1989 Ilaaka
1989 Mr. Yogi (TV Series)
1989 Sava Ser Gehu
1989 Shagun
1990 Disha
1990 Ghayal
1990 Halaat
1990 Kayedi
1990 Rishte (TV Series)
1990 Sankranti
1991 Antarnaad
1991 Iraada
1991 Meena Bazar
1991 Narasimha
1991 Sam & Me
1992 Angaar
1992 City of Joy
1992 Current
1992 Dharavi
1992 Karm Yodha
1992 Raat
1992 Zakhmi Sipahi
1993 Aakanksha
1993 Ankuram
1993 Kirdaar (TV Series)
1993 Maya
1993 Patang
1993 The Burning Season
1994 Droh Kaal
1994 Muhafiz/ In Custody
1994 Purush
1994 Triyacharitra
1994 Woh Chokri (TV Film)
1994 Wolf
1995 Aahat (TV Series)
1995 Aatank Hi Aatank
1995 Beparoa
1995 Brothers in Trouble
1995 Ek Ka Jawab Do
1995 Kartavya
1995 Target
1995 Tarpan (The Absolution)
1996 Amar Prem (TV Series)
1996 Ghatak: Lethal
1996 Maachis
1996 Prem Granth
1996 Ram Aur Shyam
1996 Safar (TV Series)
1996 Talaashi
1996 The Ghost and the Darkness
1996 Krishna
1997 Aastha: In the Prison of Spring
1997 Bhai
1997 Chachi 420
1997 Chupp
1997 Gupt: The Hidden Truth
1997 Mrityudand: The Death Sentence
1997 My Son the Fanatic
1997 Nirnayak
1997 Saturday Suspense (TV Series)
1997 Sea Hawks (TV Series)
1997 Yeh Ishq Nahin Aasaan (TV Series)
1997 Zameer: The Awakening of a Soul
1998 China Gate
1998 Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha
1998 Such a Long Journey
1998 Vinashak - Destroyer
1998 Zor: Never Underestimate the Force
1999 East Is East
1999 Gubbare (TV Series)
1999 Khoobsurat
1999 Mon petit diable
2000 Bas Yaari Rakho
2000 Dulhan Hum Le Jayenge
2000 Ghaath
2000 Hera Pheri
2000 Hey Ram
2000 Kunwara
2000 Kurukshetra
2000 Pukar
2000 Zindagi Zindabad
2001 C.I.D. (TV Series)
2001 Deewaanapan
2001 Farz
2001 Gadar: Ek Prem Katha
2001 Happy Now
2001 Indian
2001 The Mystic Masseur
2001 The Parole Officer
2001 The Zookeeper
2001 Zahreela
2002 Ansh: The Deadly Part
2002 Awara Paagal Deewana
2002 Chor Machaaye Shor
2002 Ghaav: The Wound
2002 Guru Mahaaguru
2002 Kranti
2002 Maa Tujhhe Salaam (voice)
2002 Murder (TV Film)
2002 Pitaah
2002 Pyaar Diwana Hota Hai
2002 Shararat
2002 White Teeth (TV Mini-Series)
2003 Aapko Pehle Bhi Kahin Dekha Hai
2003 Bollywood Calling
2003 Canterbury Tales (TV Mini-Series)
2003 Chupke Se
2003 Code 46
2003 Dhoop
2003 Ek Aur Ek Gyarah: By Hook or by Crook
2003 Kagaar: Life on the Edge
2003 Kash... Aap Hamare Hote
2003 Maqbool
2003 Miss India: The Mystery
2003 Pyaar Kiya Nahin Jaata..
2003 Second Generation (TV Film)
2004 Aan: Men at Work
2004 AK 47
2004 Dev
2004 Kyun! Ho Gaya Na...
2004 Lakshya
2004 Stop!
2004 The King of Bollywood
2004 Yuva
2005 Amar Joshi Shahid Ho Gaya
2005 Deewane Huye Paagal
2005 Kisna: The Warrior Poet
2005 Kyon Ki...
2005 Mangal Pandey: The Rising
2005 Mumbai Xpress
2005 The Hangman
2005 Zinda Dil
2006 Baabul
2006 Baghi
2006 Chup Chup Ke
2006 Malamaal Weekly
2006 Rang De Basanti
2006 Don
2007 Buddha Mar Gaya
2007 Charlie Wilson's War
2007 Delhii Heights
2007 Dhol
2007 Dosh
2007 Dumkata
2007 Fool N Final
2007 Is Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon
2007 Khallas: The Beginning of End
2007 Panga Naa Lo
2007 Shoot on Sight
2007 Victoria No.203: Diamonds Are Forever
2007 Welcome
2008 Kismat Konnection
2008 Lovesongs: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow
2008 Maharathi
2008 Mere Baap Pehle Aap
2008 Money Hai Toh Honey Hai
2008 Mukhbiir
2008 Singh Is Kinng
2008 Yaariyan
2009 Baabarr
2009 Billu
2009 Bolo Raam
2009 Chal Chala Chal
2009 Delhi-6
2009 Kurbaan
2009 London Dreams
2009 Life Goes On
2010 Action Replay
2010 Dabangg
2010 Kushti
2010 Na Ghar Ke Na Ghaat Ke
2010 Road to Sangam
2010 West Is West
2011 Bin Bulaye Baraati
2011 Don2
2011 Khap
2011 Kucch Luv Jaisaa
2011 Love Express
2011 Society Kaam Se Gayi
2011 Teen Thay Bhai
2012 Agneepath
2012 Chaar Din Ki Chandni
2012 Chakravyuh
2012 Kamaal Dhamaal Malamaal
2012 Krishna Aur Kans
2012 Mere Dost Picture Abhi Baaki Hai
2012 OMG: Oh My God!
2012 Son of Flower
2012 Tere Naal Love Ho Gaya
2012 The Reluctant Fundamentalist
2013 Bha Ji in Problem
2013 Jatt Boys Putt Jattan De
2013 Policegiri
2013 Time Traveller
2014 Aa Gaye Munde U.K. De
2014 Bazaar e Husn
2014 Chaar Sahibzaade
2014 Heartless
2014 Little Terrors
2014 The Hundred-Foot Journey
2015 Bajrangi Bhaijaan
2015 Buniyaad
2015 Dirty Politics
2015 Hogaya Dimaagh Ka Dahi
2015 Jai Ho! Democracy
2015 Leather Life
2015 Miss Tanakpur Haazir Ho
2015 Raambhajjan Zindabaad
2015 Trafficker
2015 Uvaa
2015 Welcome Back
2016 A Death in the Gunj
2016 A Million Rivers
2016 Aadupuliyattam
2016 Actor in Law
2016 Chaar Sahibzaade2: Rise of Banda Singh Bahadur
2016 Gandhigiri
2016 Ghayal Once Again
2016 Mirzya
2016 Project Marathwada
2016 Warrior Savitri
2016 Yeh Hai Lollipop
2017 Choron Ki Baraat
2017 Lashtam Pashtam
2017 Solar Eclipse: Depth of Darkness
2017 The Ghazi Attack
2017 Tubelight
2017 Viceroy's House
As a singer
2000 Ghaath
