Actress Par Excellence

17 Dec 1986

smitapatilEverything was going well . The ”Hope 86” star bonanza at the Brabourne Stadium Bombay had the gates crashing in an unprecedented fashion. Suddenly and silently, the cruel claws of nature made their presence felt and in a way none could have dreamt of.

The news on the tube flashed a sullen and grief-stricken picture of Mrs. Smita Patil ‘Babbar’ – noted film actress. Grief stricken indeed – Smita was in a virtual comatose following severe internal hemorrhage and bleeding, she was clinging to life through the most slender of threads. And the morning papers announced the chilling news ‘Smita is no more’.

The events occurred abruptly giving no time to react or reconcile. There she was, dressed in black salwar-kameez, participating zestfully in the film industry walk as protest march, despite being in a late stage of pregnancy. Harmful and may be inadvisable it was. But that was the way Smita liked it – courageously standing up for a cause and doing her bit.

Her marriage with actor Raj Babbar last year was big news. Despite murmurs from all corners, she went ahead with it. In Smita’s own words. “A lot of things are not easy to understand. Besides, I’m not worried about the society’s hostile remarks.”

And it was not too long back that Smita was again in news; she delivered a baby boy in the previous month. But she never recovered after that. Things changed from bad to worse and in Jaslok Hospital, Smita breathed her last.

Smita Patil the youngest of the three daughters of former Maharashtra Minister Shivaji Rao Patil and Vidya Patil, was born on the 17th of October 1955 in Pune.

Smita was only 31 when she died – that’s the age when people start feeling the ground under their feet but Smita had already carved a niche in the film world, especially art cinema.

Though God had not bestowed Smita with a chocolate face, it had been more than compensated with her sharp features, her penetrating eyes with an immense depth and sensuousness that could convey a lot more than said.

Smita Patil the youngest of the three daughters of former Maharashtra Minister Shivaji Rao Patil and Vidya Patil, was born on the 17th of October 1955 in Pune. After her schooling in the Renuka Memorial Girls High School, she entered the hallowed Ferguson College of Pune for her graduation in Philosophy and Psychology. It was then, that she made her debut in celluloid. Her friend, Arun Khopkar cast her in a documentary ‘Teesra Madhyam’.

Soon she was appointed as a newsreader in the Bombay Doordarshan and this was where the renowned Shyam Benegal spotted her. Her very presence on the screen made me stir-‘I could feel the possibilities of immense histrionic talent in that newsreader’.

After her screen test, Smita was given a child role in the film ‘Charandas Chor’. But her first big break was in ‘Nishant’ directed by Benegal. ‘’When she stepped into our set for Nishant, she was a young child. Despite no formal training in acting, she had the instinctual ability to comprehend and perform par excellence. Her screen prescience was the vital factor. She was so deeply involved in the character in toto that it ceased to be Acting; it was Being’’.

This was precisely what distinguished Smita from the troika of Naseruddin, Ompuri and Shabana. All of them had been formally trained at the rudiments and intricacies of acting; their efforts to make the characters come alive could always be sensed. But Smita’s performance seemed effortless-as if the urchin woman on the screen in ‘Chakra’ was a real life shot from a slum rather than cinema.

If ‘Nishant’ was her baptism ; with ‘Bhumika’ she had arrived. Her role in Bhumika received the national award-and to say that she was only two films old. She had said, ‘Acting to me is not what an actor can do, but what a human being, a person can do.’

Her absolutely down-to-earth portrayal to the life andtimes of the most normal circumstances in films like ‘Chakra’, ‘Manthan’, ‘Sadgati’, Tarang’ only to name a few of the 50-odd, made one feel the day-to-day happenings.

After that there was no looking back. Her psychometric portrayal in ‘Arth’, the slum dweller in ‘Chakra’, the woman fighting for her individual existence in ‘Subah’, and that of a villager in ‘Manthan’ and ‘Mirch Masala’ are landmarks in parallel cinema.

In her very short career of 12 years, Smita Patil had acted in films made in more than half a dozen languages and with all the hot shots of the art cinema-Shyam Benegal, Jabbar Patel, Ketan Mehta, Govind Nihlani, Mirnal Sen, Satyajit Ray etal; and each performance seemed to outshine the rest.

Two more national awards came her way – for her acting in Chakra and then in ‘Umberatha’ (made in Hindi as Subah’). If one were to list all the meaningful ventures of this Padmashri recipient, what one would arrive at would be the virtual l film glossary vis-a-vis commendable acting.

Her absolutely down-to-earth portrayal to the life and times of the most normal circumstances in films like ‘Chakra’, ‘Manthan’, ‘Sadgati’, Tarang’ only to name a few of the 50-odd, made one experience the day-to-day happenings at close quarters. Yet, the appreciation for an aesthetic performance par excellence could never be far away.

Smita, along with Shabana Azmi, was one of the two pillars in feminine roles in the small cinema and films like ‘Arth’, ‘Mandi’, ‘Albert Pinto Ko —’ are landmarks in the track of art productions. Due to their healthy competition to excel beyond perfection, it was the audience who benefited the most.

Smita had paired with Raj Babbar more often than not on the screen also. Films like ‘Jawaab’, ‘Aaj Ki Awaaz’, ‘Andgaaray’ and ‘Dehleez’ and a few in the cans brought the man and wife together on the screen.

Now, that she is no more, Smita Patil comes to the audience in art cinema directed by Ketan Mehta for the last time in a film called ‘Mirch Masala’ portraying the colourful folklore of Gujarat, revolving around Smita playing an alluring yet dynamic village belle.

From her point of view, Smita regarded ‘Subah’ as the movie she identified herself as a woman with. Her portrayal of a woman torn between family responsibilities and perusal of a career had moved her deeply.

Many a people feel that Smita was not cut out to deliver the goods in commercial films. Though Smita had acted and acted well in many a commercial production, I personally feel that she was designed for a far more meaningful cinema. She was an actress more apt to touch the chords of the heart than ring the coffers alive. And the retrospective of her films arranged at Paris was glowing tribute to the fact.

Films are made on the lives of great film luminaries after their death, but Smita had enacted in herself on the screen.

Just a look at that dark yet refreshing face, the silent yet verbose lips and the meaningful oceanic eyes could do more than the entire body works of others.

To have acted in 50 films in half a dozen languages, most of them sterling performances, is like having come a long way. But at 31, it’s just like the beginning of the innings. But that’s probably how Smita would have wanted it- big yet no long.

Rekha has done well with Shashi Kapoor, Shabana with Naseruddin. In similar way, Smita and Om Puri made a delightful two-some to watch on the screen in films like ‘Ardh Satya’ and ‘Sadgati’. The two had a unique vibrant coordination which could be felt profusely.

Destiny has its own designs of pulling the strings, but for Smita, it was in an ironical way. Films are made on the lives of great film luminaries after their death, but Smita had enacted in herself on the screen. In one of her lesser known films ‘Pet Pyaar Aur Paap’, Smita had enacted s slum-dweller who was bearing a child of married truck driver, Raj Babbar. It is the end that makes on ponder. Smita dies living Raj Babbar the baby behind.

There is a definite dearth of talent in the heavens for an actress like Smita to break off her journey at such a premature junction to leave for the celestial abode.

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