Some Faces Of Smita Patil No One Who Knows Her Work Can Forget

Ali Peter John

It was on an evening when there was only Doordarshan and we all were glued to it as if our lives depended on it. The big and the small, the rich and the poor had all formed a new way of enlightening themselves and they even watched the news in Marathi. It was Mr V.P Sathe who was a co-worker writer with K.A Abbas and one of the most respected critics and who ran his own publicity agency called Bombay Publicity services. He came to Abbas one evening and told him about a very interesting face with a lot of talent reading the news in Marathi and he requested Abbas to see the Marathi news with him. Abbas did not know much of Marathi which was one of his greatest regrets, but he decided to watch the news in which the girl Mr Sathe had talked about would be seen. The news lasted hardly five to eight minutes and Abbas stood up and said,“Sathe, mind my words, this girl will take the word of Hindi films by storm. I may be able to work with her or not, but I am sure that she will shine out like very few actresses.....

The years passed and Smita had become an actress who could have no competition. She was an actress who couldn't do the run of the mill roles, but she excelled in living the realistic roles she played. Like Abbas had lost to Shyam Benegal when he had signed Shabana, he had to again lose to Shyam Benegal who was the first to sign Smita to play several significant roles for which Smita won countless awards, but Abbas was not bitter, but happy that his prediction had come true. Years passed and Abbas wanted to make a film called“The Naxalites". He wanted to cast Mithun Chakraborty and Smita and they both agreed without asking any questions. They were not to be paid like other producers paid them, they were not allowed to have makeup man and they could not ask for any conveyance for their drivers and their makeup man. They even had to travel second class by train to Kolkata where most of the film was shot. The film like most of the film of Abbas did not do well, but both Mithun and Smita always remembered their unusual experiences while shooting for Abbas.....

I was and I am sure the first English journalist who Smita agreed to talk to before her first film“Nishant"or some film of Shyam Benegal was to be released. She was a minister's daughter but lived in one of those old fashioned bungalows which had several rooms in them. I remember knocking the door and asking the young woman who was sweeping the floor for Smita Patil as she had invited me. The young woman with a broom in her hand wiped her forehead with her dupatta and said,“I am Smita Patil, who else can be Smita Patil? Aren't you Ali Peter John, I have heard so much about you and could never imagine that I would be standing face to face with you with a broom in my hand". We had a very long talk which was followed by a pucca Marathi lunch and the girl with the broom who had still to experience stardom came down Forjett Street and left only after I had got into a cab, it was the beginning of a very long association bordering on a very good relationship till the last day of her short life . She had achieved what some of the best actresses could not in the thirty years of her life. She died when she was only thirty, which was a prediction she had made to me while we were sitting at a hotel called Rajnikanth facing the she at Alibaug. She was very certain about her dying at thirty and that was one reason why she kept making a series of experiments as an actress who could never take no for an answer or a solution.....

She had done more than eighty films during her illustrious career, but there can be no two opinions about her being at her best in films like“Samna",“Nishant",“Manthan",“Bhumika",“Jait Re Jait",“Gaman",“Aakrosh",“Mirch Masala",“Arth"and to say that she was amazing in almost all the films she did will be an understatement. There was a time when there was a tough competition between Shabana Azmi and Smita and Smita surprised one and all when she stole the show from Shabana who had an author-backed role in the film and Shabana never teamed up with her again, for reasons best known to her.

As I said, Smita was in a hurry to do as many things as possible in what she was sure was going to be a very short life.

She found a godfather in Johny Bakshi who had very good contacts and fell for his idea of doing what were called masala or commercial films. It was during this time that she did big films like“Shakti"(with Dilip Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan and Raakhee) and directed by Ramesh (Sholay) Sippy,“Namak Hallal''with Amitabh and Shashi Kapoor. Her admirers were shocked when Smita did a very“sexy"song and danced number in the rain with Amitabh.

She was now a star in the true sense with her own apartment, her own cars and an entire staff, but she never behaved like one.

She had developed a very good professional relationship with Amitabh who like Dilip Kumar, Raaj Kumar, Dev Anand, Sunil Dutt and Dharmendra were her ardent admirers. Amitabh was shooting for“Coolie"in Bangalore when he recieved a call from Smita in Bombay. She asked him if all was well with him and he laughed and said,“nothing, Smita, nothing, I am fine". Smita told him that she was very scared of her dreams and further told him that she had seen a very bad dream about him. Amitabh did not give it a serious thought add he had many other issues on mind. The next morning he met with that ghastly accident which nearly killed him. Amitabh has always had the highest regard for Smita as an actress......

Smita also wanted to know the experience of being married and being a mother. She had other affairs, but she really fell in love with Raj Babbar who was already a married man with two children. But their love affair kept growing stronger and Smita even did some rank bad films with him as the hero, only to be close to him. They got married in a civil marriage and Smita spent the next few months in total contentment. To add to her happiness, she was pregnant and was expecting her first baby but continued to work and had even taken part in a mass protest rally organised by the industry against the taxes raised against the industry. She showed first signs of being exhausted and was asked to go home....

That was the beginning of a major physical crisis for her. She was a victim of colitis which she developed when she decided to be very realistic about her role as a tribal woman and even drank the water from the ancient village in which the shooting of Dr Jabbar Patel's“Jait Re Jait". It was this water that gave her a serious stomach infection. She was taken very sick in the first week of December 1986, but she still took part in a massive entertainment show at the Brabourne Stadium to show her solitarity with the industry.

One evening, she complained of severe pain and was taken to the family doctor, Dr R.K Aggarwal who said it was nothing to with about and such things happened to women during their first pregnancy.

But things kept getting worse towards the evening and she was rushed to the Jaslok Hospital. The best doctors tried their best to save her. The media was hungry to know more about her latest condition, the phones kept ringing, but it seemed like Smita's own prediction about herself had to come true. Padmashri Smita Patil who was a winner of several National and other awards and who was loved and admired by one and all passed away into the great beyond. SHE WAS EXACTLY THIRTY YEARS AND A FEW DAYS OLD!

THERE WERE HECTIC PREPARATIONS BEING MADE TO GIVE HER A FITTING FAREWELL. SHE HAD A VERY STRONG POLITICAL CONNECTIONS WITH HER FATHER, MR SHIVAJIRAO PATIL BEING A MINISTER AND HER MOTHER BEING A LEADING ACTIVIST WORKING FOR THE SEVA DAL. THERE WAS A COMPETITION BETWEEN THE INDUSTRY AND THE VARIOUS POLITICAL PARTIES TO HAVE THE HONOUR OF ARRANGING HER FINAL FAREWELL. THE THEN MAYOR OF BOMBAY, MR DUTTA NALAVADE DECIDED TO GIVE HER A STATE FUNERAL AND SHE WAS CREMATED ON THE GROUNDS OF SHIVAJI PARK IN THE PRESENCE OF LAKHS OF PEOPLE AND I STOOD IN ONE CORNER AND WONDERED IF THE WOMAN GOING UP IN FLAMES WAS THE SAME GIRL I HAD MET FOR THE FIRST TIME WHEN SHE WAS SWEEPING THE FLOOR OF HER HOUSE.

She has left behind her son Prateik who was only a few months old when she died. Her family brought up Prateik who had taken an early aversion for his father, Raj Babbar and had taken to drugs at a very early age. But he had the genes of his mother which made him an actor and he is a very good actor who can be better if he only remembers how great an actress his mother, Smita Patil was.

For more Bollywood updates, follow Bollyy!

Tags: Bollywood, Bollywood News, Bollywood Updates, Television, Telly News, Smita Patil, Smita Patil Biography