Om Puri's Wife -
Is it true that Om Puri wanted someone else to write this biography but you insisted on writing it yourself? Did you feel you would be able to handle such a responsibility?
No, that is not true. I was supposed to write this book when I first met him in 1993. I had gone to interview him during (the making of) City of Joy. We weren't married then. But it did not work out. In 2002, I signed a contract with Roli Books to write Om Puri's biography.
This is my husband's biography, not Nandita's version of Om Puri. So it had to come out well. I started gathering everything on him slowly. In 2005, I published my book of short stories called Nine On Nine and after that, started work on my novel. By then, Om got upset with me and he asked me if he should ask someone else to write it.
A friend of mine, Dr Shozeb Haider, who had helped me with the research, told me that it would be a shame if anyone else wrote Om's biography since I had everything at my disposal. He said I was being lazy. That really spurred me on. I finished the book in a year and a half then.
Read more from HERE
Is it true that Om Puri wanted someone else to write this biography but you insisted on writing it yourself? Did you feel you would be able to handle such a responsibility?
No, that is not true. I was supposed to write this book when I first met him in 1993. I had gone to interview him during (the making of) City of Joy. We weren't married then. But it did not work out. In 2002, I signed a contract with Roli Books to write Om Puri's biography.
This is my husband's biography, not Nandita's version of Om Puri. So it had to come out well. I started gathering everything on him slowly. In 2005, I published my book of short stories called Nine On Nine and after that, started work on my novel. By then, Om got upset with me and he asked me if he should ask someone else to write it.
A friend of mine, Dr Shozeb Haider, who had helped me with the research, told me that it would be a shame if anyone else wrote Om's biography since I had everything at my disposal. He said I was being lazy. That really spurred me on. I finished the book in a year and a half then.
Read more from HERE
Om Puri -
On wife Nandita Puri:
My wife studied in an English medium school while I studied in a Municipal school. One day, when we were fighting, she used the word 'zilch'. I said zilch kya hota hai [what is zilch]. She said zero. I said kya zero nahi keh sakti impress kisse kar rahi ho angrezi se [couldn't you just say zero? Whom are you trying to impress in English?].
I have known Nandita for many years now. We first met in Kolkata when I was shooting for City Of Joy in 1991. She was writing for Hindustan Times, The Statesman and The Telegraph, and had come to interview me. She never went back and stayed glued to me. I tried my best to separate but the Fevicol was very strong (laughs).
When she came to Mumbai, she didn't do anything for five years except meet friends and party. Then Gulzarsaab reprimanded her and asked her why she wasn't writing after leaving Kolkata. I coaxed her to write too. Eventually, she started a column on Mid-Day. She wrote a book of short stories and is almost done with her historical novel.
I told her to write my biography in 1991 but she has been sitting on it. Twenty years ago, Shyambabu [Benegal], who knew some of my childhood incidents, told me to write my autobiography because he could smell a film in it. Those words remained in my mind.
But my wife sat on it for 20 years. I had to threaten her that either I will write it myself or I'll get it written by someone else. Within a year and a few months, the biography was ready.
I asked Rensil D'Silva -- who wrote Rang De Basanti and directed Kurbaan -- what his discipline of writing was. He said that if he didn't write at least four pages a day, he would not get sleep. Gulzarsaab gets up early every morning and starts writing or at least reading. God knows what will happen when I go home today!
Read more from HERE
3 comments:
IMO, that was only a sad marketing strategy to sell that book. Whether the publishing house did it or Om Puri himself - can't say!!
What a sad sad gimmick from a fine actor, and these events in his life make me lose respect for him.
http://im.rediff.com/movies/2009/nov/25pic4.jpg
The picture I think puts rest to all those things said by Om Puri that he didn't know what was his wife writing all the time.
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