Pranutan Has A Rich Legacy Behind Her....

Ali Peter John

There was talk about Pranutan making her debut as a leading lady in a film called“Notebook"which was to be produced by Salman Khan and some of his associates and directed by the National Award winning director Nitin Kakkar. Her hero was to be Zahir Iqbal who was the son of a friend of Salman. What was interesting to read was that she closely remembered her grandmother, the legendary actress Nutan and the film was to be made in a quick schedule....

The film was released on Friday and people who have seen the film are still busy debating whether she looks like Nutan or not, but she has proved one fact and that is that she has certainly inherited some talent from her grandmother....

Pranutan has a very prestigious background. Nutan was her grandmother. Her son, Mohnish Behl who was working as an amateur pilot in America came back to Bombay to try his luck in films, but didn't find and work coming to him easily and it was embarassing for him to go around asking for work as the son of Nutan. But it was Nutan who had gone into retirement after playing a glorious innings who found a new way to promote her son. She started accepting roles as the mother in the hope of asking her producers to take Mohnish seriously. It was this plan that got her some of the best mother's roles in big films like“Saajan Bina Suhaagan",“Main Tulsi Tere Aangan Ki",“Kasturi",“Naam"and“Subhash Ghai’s“Karma"in which she was teamed up with Dilip Kumar which was her dream when she was a leading lady and even did a film with him called“Shikwah"which for reasons unknown was never completed.....

Her mission succeeded, but Mohnish could only get the role of a villain, especially in the early films of Salman, like“Maine Pyar Kiya"and a positive role only in another Salman starrer,“Hum Aapke Hai Koun"which created history but did not make any difference to the career of Mohnish. Nutan died of cancer, but more than cancer, she died of a mother's broken heart....

Mohnish married one of his co-stars in a small film called“Ekta"who was a discovery of Dev Anand who incidentally had the record of doing eight films with Nutan. Mohnish had to give up his ambition to make it as an actor and was almost forgotten till the news of his daughter, Pranutan brought him back into the limelight as the father of the promising new actress, Pranutan....

Pranutan's great-grandmother was Shobha Samarth who was a prominent heroine of the forties and fifties. She was famous after she played the role of Sita in Vijay Bhatt's (uncle of Mahesh Bhatt)“Ram Rajya"which was the only film seen by Mahatma Gandhi. Her younger daughter, Tanuja also made it big and now it is her daughter Kajol who is making waves during the last two decades.

Pranutan is also distantly or closely related to the entire Mukherjee clan, starting with the pioneer filmmaker and founder of Filmalaya Studios and his brothers, Subodh Mukherjee and Ram Mukherjee, the father of Rani Mukherjee. The other brand uncles of Pranutan are the one-time star Joy Mukherjee, Rono Mukherjee, Dev Mukherjee, Shomu Mukherjee, the father of Kajol and Sharbani Mukherjee who is the daughter of Rono Mukherjee and had made a striking debut in J.P Dutta's“Border"and was never heard of much again.

It is in this background that the expectations about Pranutan have risen sky-high and it remains to be seen if she lives up to the legacy of her mother first and then the entire family she is a part of.

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