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Amol Palekar today is known more for the films he has made, some in Marathi and the others in Hindi; the latest being the high point of his career, Paheli, with Shahrukh Khan and Rani Mukherjee as his leading pair which was the Indian nomination for Oscars.
That the film neither got rave reviews nor was taken seriously as an Oscar nomination is a different story, altogether.
He first made his presence felt as a director in films like 'Thodasa Romani Ho Jaye', 'Mriganayani' and 'Dayera` which was hailed as a unique, sensitively made film on the life of a transvestite.
Palekar certainly is considered a serious filmmaker though with the limitations of a region where he was born. He has never been able to bridge the gap. As an actor, during his prime, too distributers described him with boundries that ended at Virar, the last railway station on Western Railway. It was mainly his own undoing as he insisted on playing middle class even after becoming a success, and in real life too. Amol Palekar made a conscious effort to reject glamour even when he had opportunities staring at him.
A graduate from the JJ School of Art, an actor and director on the Marathi stage in the evenings, Amol was a bank clerk during the day. He made his debut in Bollywood with Basu Chatterji's light film 'Rajnigandha', playing his real self as a clerk, and went on to play a middle class young man in several films ('Chhoti Si Baat', 'Chitchor', 'Gharonda', 'Baaton Baaton Mein', 'Damaad', 'Do Ladke Dono Kadke', 'Rang Birangi', 'Naram Garam'). But though some of his films were hits, the Maharashtrian Amol's market was considered limited to Mumbai.
Though he made a successful pair first with Vidya Sinha and later with Zarina Wahab, he refused to capitalize on that.
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