When Nana Patekar said he ‘never found time to live’: ‘Zindagi udhar ki hai’

When Nana Patekar said he never got time to live for himself. (Photo: Express Archive)

Veteran actor Nana Patekar died at the age of 75. The actor, who dedicated nearly five decades to the film industry, first took up acting to grab the attention of his father, Dinakar Patekar. Initially juggling theatre and work, Nana eventually chose to pursue theatre full-time. The actor, whose death has shocked the entire country, once admitted that he had never really found the time to live for himself. Speaking in an interview once, the actor said, “Humari zindagi udhar ki hai na (Our life belongs to others, doesn’t it?)”.

Speaking to The Lallantop just two years ago, Nana, who was 73 at the time, said, “Our life belongs to others, doesn’t it? When do we ever get to live our own life? We never really found the time to live for ourselves. Today, we are living the life of one character; tomorrow, it will be another character. Maybe the day we finally stop and pause, we will realise it. We will think about ourselves. But that day never comes. It becomes a habit.”

He added, “I have said this before—when you are performing on stage, there’s darkness in front of you, isn’t there? We are on the stage. And perhaps that is simply the nature of an artist: we have to find our own happiness in that darkness. And the echo of applause becomes an addiction. We can’t break away from it.”

He concluded, “That is life for us. The day that voice—the sound of applause—stops, that is the day we die. After that, you won’t cast us anymore. You won’t even take us.”

ALSO READ | Nana Patekar Death Updates: Nitin Gadkari, Yogi Adityanath pay tribute to late actor

While many actors enter the profession driven by their passion for acting, for Nana, the journey began with a much more personal motivation: he simply wanted to impress his father.

He once participated in a school play about the saint Valmiki. “I was one of his henchmen,” Nana Patekar recalled. His performance had such an impact on him that his father travelled from the city to their village to watch him perform.

Story continues below this ad

“I assumed that my father loved my brothers more than me. After all, I wasn’t very good-looking. But when I did the Valmiki play, even though I was playing the henchman, my father travelled to our village to see me perform. I thought this was a great way to pull his attention towards me,” he said.

That journey continued until his final years.

Nana Patekar remained actively involved in films over the years. From The Vaccine War in 2023 to the Marathi film Ole Aale in 2024, Vanvaas in the same year, Housefull 5 in 2025 and O’Romeo in 2026, the veteran actor continued to remain a familiar presence on screen.

He was last seen in the Anil Kapoor-starrer Subedaar, where he made a special appearance as Nana Waghmare.

He was also part of filmmaker Prakash Jha’s Sankalp, starring Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Kubbra Sait, Sanjay Kapoor and Neera Kabi, among others. The show is streaming on Amazon MX Player.