Om Puri at Nine: The Unfading Echo of a Face That Spoke for a Nation
By Tanveer Zaidi
On the ninth anniversary of his passing, cinema across generations pauses in quiet reflection to remember Om Puri—an actor whose weathered face, resonant voice, and uncompromising honesty turned performance into lived truth.
He left the world on January 6, 2017, but his presence has never truly departed. Om Puri was not merely an actor; he was a conscience on screen, a mirror held up to society, and a reminder that art could be raw, unsettling, and deeply humane all at once.
His death was as unembellished as many of the lives he portrayed. Found alone in his kitchen by his driver, he passed away suddenly due to a heart attack.
Years earlier, he had told the BBC with unsettling calm, “You won’t even know when I die. I’ll just pass away in my sleep.”
The words, prophetic in hindsight, lent his passing a haunting stillness—an abrupt full stop to a life that was otherwise loud with struggle, courage, and conviction.
From the Margins to the Centre Stage
Om Puri’s life story reads like one of the characters he immortalised. Born into poverty in Ambala, hardship shaped his earliest years. When his father was jailed, the family lost its home.
As a boy, Om worked at a tea stall, did odd jobs, and scavenged coal from railway tracks to survive. Hunger, displacement, and humiliation were not ideas to him—they were lived realities.
That intimate knowledge of deprivation later became the emotional fuel behind his most unforgettable performances.
Art became his escape and his rebellion. Fate intervened when he crossed paths with Naseeruddin Shah during auditions at the National School of Drama.
The two bonded instantly, united by ambition and adversity.
Encouraged by Naseer, Om joined the Film and Television Institute of India, sharpening a craft that was already rooted in instinct rather than artifice.
Naseer would later recall hearing Om’s voice at an NSD audition—“steel wrapped in silk”—and being deeply moved by his living conditions: a simple charpai in an open gallery near the Old Delhi railway station.
Once, Om cooked him a humble egg curry there. That meal, seasoned with friendship and dignity, stayed etched in Naseer’s memory—a quiet metaphor for Om Puri himself.
A Thousand Lives, One Face
Om Puri possessed a rare gift: he could disappear completely into a role. His performances in Aakrosh (1980) and Ardh Satya (1982) redefined realism in Indian cinema, earning him National Film Awards and critical reverence.
He embodied rage, despair, and moral conflict with an intensity that felt almost dangerous.
Yet, the same man delivered pitch-perfect comedy in cult classics like Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (1983) and Hera Pheri (2000), proving that humour, too, could be rooted in truth.
From a disco manager in Disco Dancer to a hard-nosed police officer in the Kannada hit A.K. 47, for which he even spoke his own Kannada lines, Om Puri’s range was astonishing.
His artistry crossed borders with ease. International audiences saw him in City of Joy opposite Patrick Swayze, Wolf with Jack Nicholson, and The Ghost and the Darkness.
In Britain, his role as a conservative Pakistani immigrant father in East Is East earned him a BAFTA nomination.
In recognition of his contribution to British cinema, he was appointed an Honorary Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2004—an honour he wore lightly, like all accolades.
The Man Beyond the Spotlight
Behind the formidable screen presence was a man of contradictions. Om Puri’s personal life was turbulent.
He married actor Seema Kapoor briefly, and later journalist Nandita Puri, with whom he had a son, Ishaan.
Nandita’s candid biography of him sparked controversy and strained their relationship.
The marriage saw public discord and allegations before ending in separation in 2013.
Spiritually, Om Puri was neither dogmatic nor detached. He found comfort in spiritual reading and was deeply drawn to Sufism, which he described as “an exalted state of mind where love and peace overflow.”
He believed this spirit transcended religion and borders, often advocating cultural understanding between India and Pakistan—an ideal he lived and voiced without fear.
Despite international acclaim, his humility remained intact.
A poignant detail captures this best: of all the memorabilia from his vast career, Om Puri kept only one object—the bell from the rickshaw he rode in City of Joy. It symbolised not just a role, but a life lived close to the ground.
Brotherhood Forged in Fire
Few friendships in Indian cinema were as deep as that between Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah.
Their bond went beyond professional camaraderie. In 1977, Om Puri quite literally saved Naseer’s life, wrestling down an attacker who stabbed him in a restaurant and accompanying him to the hospital.
In later years, Naseer wrote movingly about his friend, calling him one of the funniest people he had ever known, as brilliant in comedy as he was ferocious in drama.
He described watching Om grow from a struggling sapling into a “massive oak,” noting that despite his integrity and earthiness, Om always felt slightly out of place in the glitter of mainstream cinema—yet kept trying, on his own terms.
A Truth That Endures
Om Puri’s legacy is not confined to awards or box office numbers.
It lives on through the Om Puri Foundation, which supports meaningful cinema, and through his son Ishaan, who is forging his own creative path.
Most powerfully, it lives on in the characters Om Puri left behind—angry, broken, funny, compassionate, flawed, and unmistakably human.
Some actors entertain. A few provoke. Rarer still are those who transform the medium itself.
Om Puri did all three. Nine years after his sudden departure, his voice—gritty, compassionate, unafraid—still echoes through the corridors of cinema, reminding us that truth, once spoken honestly, never really dies.
(Tanveer Zaidi is an actor, writer, and educationist)
#OmPuri #IndianCinema #LegendaryActor #ArdhSatya #JaaneBhiDoYaaro #CinemaOfConscience #NaseeruddinShah #ActorLivesOn
