Tanushree Is Not The First  Actor Nana Patekar Has Rubbed The Wrong Way

Nana has the reputation of being temperamental.And now when his rather rough attitude has got him into deep trouble I remember how he had warred with Bollywood’s most halcyon star in  our film industry.

We are  talking about none other than Akshay Kumar. Perhaps the  only open fight Akshay ever had was with Nana while shooting for Anees Bazmi’s No Entry. Eyewitnesses say the fracas flew into a furious argument  over some dance steps.

Incidentally after I  put Tanushree’s  story out  Nana Patekar stopped talking  to me for a decade. Recently when I rang him  up to congratulate  him on  his performance is  Natsamrat he  very clearly told me  he would speak to me only if I apologized  to him firsr.

“I know who put you up to this,” he growled.

Sounds familiar? We now have Tanushree Dutta coming forward to narrate her horrific experience with the  mercurial Nana over some absurd dance steps  for a film suggestively  titled Horn Ok Please. Now suddenly everyone associated within this shelved never-relaesed  film , including the obscure  director and  the  not-so-obscure choreographer and assistant  director, has a voice.

Speaking of the podgy choreographer  of this  hideous non-happening film , he is known to  ask chorus dancers  to compromise.

“Aisa  hota hai iss industry  mein….Compromise karna  padta hai….Sona padta hai,” the senior-most  choreographer  ofBollywood had once shouted into  my burning ears. I didn’t have the guts to ask her if  she had to do it too.

 I suspected  I knew the answer.

A  heroine of Nana’s and a dear friend of mine  who did one film with him says, “Nana gets very physical when he  is working. It doesn’t matter whether the co-star  male or female. He just gets very aggressive. He tried it with me too. I warned  him. He stopped.”

Apparently Manisha Koirala  who had a short  but wild relationship with  Nana when they were shooting for Agni Sakshi, was at  the receiving end of Nana’s  abusive behaviour.Nana didn’t hide his abusive behaviour. He  did it in public.

“Of course Nana doesn’t think it is abusive. It’s all a  part  of a day’s work. When you are shooting it is  perfectly normal for him to pull his co-star’s hand, push the  co-star, and so on. Until five years  ago this was acceptable  behaviour. Today  it is a criminal  offence,” says a  co-star  of Nana who has  worked more than once with him.

Actors who protest against such  “dedicated” shooting tactics find  themselves ostracized. Tanushree Dutta hasn’t been seen much on screen since that chilling encounter  with Nana . And what  about  poor Sabeeha , daughter  of  the  veteran actressAmita,  who  just vanished after she protested strongly against  the superstar Rajesh Khanna’s behaviour on the sets  of a film called Anokha Rishta.When 15-year  old Sabeeha  wouldn’t “co-operate” Khanna and the  film’s director I V Sasi got together  to harass the hell out of  the poor girl,

 Khanna allegedly made unmentionable comments  that in today’s volatile  atmosphere  of  gender  touchiness would definitely have  landed him in jail.

 But big actors  in Bollywood and specially in the South Indian film industry were known  to openly and proudly  heckle/evetease/proposition  their heroines  on the sets  of their films as the hangers-on cheered them on.

 Be careful whom  or what you are applauding in public.Yesterday’s  prank is today’s prison cell.