Om Puri

Om Puri effortlessly straddled many worlds. He was a veteran Indian actor who doubled as an activist. He was equally comfortable in arthouse and mainstream films and in Hollywood and Bollywood. He inhabited these personas with grace and ease. Om Puri’s sudden and unexpected death on Friday morning at the age of 66 will be mourned not just in India but wherever films are seen. The breadth of his appeal can be seen by the fact that he will be remembered across generations and boundaries. For those who grew up with the Bollywood of the 1980s, Om Puri will forever be associated for his idiosyncratic performances in films like Aakrosh, Disco Dancer, Mirch Masala and Ardh Satya. For younger audiences, he is perhaps more familiar for giving gravitas to Bollywood flicks such as Singh is Kinng, Billu and Don 2. Outside of the Subcontinent, Om Puri became one of the few Indian actors to regularly appear in Western movies, making a name for himself with his roles in Gandhi, East is West, Wolf and, most recently, opposite Helen Mirren in The Hundred-Foot Journey. Apart from that, he was also a regular on stage and television. It speaks to the breadth of his range that Om Puri could cast such a wide net and yet remain recognisably the same actor.

We in Pakistan have particular reason to mourn Om Puri. He was a regular visitor to the country and even appeared recently in the comedy Actor-in-Law. Om Puri was one of the few voices of sanity last year when Pakistani artists were kicked out of India, standing up, as he always did, for peace and tolerance. For that, he had to face the ire of right-wing Hindutva supporters in India. Om Puri’s activism always sought greater understanding and showed a healthy contempt for the ruling elite. The actor was even served with a privilege motion by the Lok Sabha in 2011 when he condemned unfeeling parliamentarians for their callousness during Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption hunger strike. Many of his films were concerned with the exploitation of the poor, particularly Dalits and religious minorities. In the movie Dev, he tackled a role of fanatical Hindu police officer during the anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat and was so convincing in the role he had to convince Muslim crew members that he was not like that in real life. He was so outraged by the religious intolerance of Narendra Modi that he actively campaigned for the Congress Party – despite opposing them in the 1980s for their violence against the Sikh community – in the state. That passion was at the core of Om Puri, a thoroughly decent man who did his best to bring art and justice to the world.