When Om Puri cut his fee for a Telugu film

Actor Om Puri had acted in only one Telugu film Ankuram (1993), helmed by C. Uma Maheswara Rao, in which he played Satyam, a tribal. Revathy and Sarath Babu played key roles in the film, that dealt with issues like atrocities against tribals, human rights and Naxalism. “When I first met Om Puri for this film and gave him the synopsis in English, he asked me, ‘Can you do this film’,” recalls Rao. “Some of the issues I showed in my film actually happened in the state. He was concerned about it and agreed to do the character immediately,” he says.

Rao didn’t know Om Puri personally, but knew director Govind Nihalani. They had met at an event in Vijayawada and became acquaintances. “We used to discuss a lot about his films and once I showed him the  script of Ankuram. I told him I wanted to approach Om Puri for the tribal’s character. That’s how I met him,” he reveals, adding “He is one of the few actors who worked in many films that addressed social causes and even in real life, was concerned about them. He was one of the best actors and the present generation should look up to him as a role model.”

Om Puri came down to Rajahmundry for the shooting of this film. “We mostly conversed in English, so many thought we were making an English film! Even the unit complained that they didn’t understand,” says Rao. He recalls an incident during the shooting. “While shooting, I was suffering from a bad cough and sometimes, it would irritate everyone at the shoot. After two days, Om Puri went to a shop in Rajahmundry and bought a piece of jaggery and gave it to me to reduce my cough. He did it on his own and this shows how concerned he was about others,” recollects Rao. He adds that he was very simple and normal though he was a very busy and top actor at that time.

“He even reduced his remuneration by half for my film and asked me to give good publicity to the film as he liked the subject. Revathy also reduced her remuneration for this film,” says the director. The film and the director went on to win the National Award for Best Regional Feature Film and National Award  for Best Director. Interestingly, Om Puri had no dialogues in the film. “Though he was on screen most of the time, he was without dialogues. Only in the climax scene, he had to speak three sentences which he wrote in Hindi,” recalls Rao.

After that film, he didn’t contact Om Puri, until four months ago. “I completed a script Amrapali and called him four months back, to ask him to be a part of it. He agreed,” says Rao, adding, “I was shocked after hearing the sad news of Om Puri’s death. He was not only an actor but one of the finest human beings.” Om Puri’s other Telugu release —Ratri, a dubbed version of Hindi film Raat, was directed by Ram Gopal Varma. Revathy once again played the female lead in this film.