Veteran actor Nana Patekar has passed away. The Hindi film industry and Mumbai share an inseparable bond. When one speaks of Mumbai, it encompasses its theatre, its world of commercial cinema, and the middle and lower-middle classes striving daily to carve out their identity, from slums to chawls. Then came the working class that gradually faced ruin in this city and across the country; the rise of the underworld born out of that social despair; the period where communal harmony unraveled before our eyes; followed by the post-liberalization expansion of middle-class aspirations and the politics swirling around it all. Through every such era, Nana Patekar made his presence felt, sometimes on stage, sometimes on screen. From ‘Hamidabai Chi Kothi’ to ‘Parinda’, ‘Krantiveer’, ‘Ab Tak Chhappan’, and all the way to ‘Natasamrat’, Nana remained ever-present. Across each phase, he brought to life, whether on the screen or the stage, the common man living with persistent inner turmoil. Anger, humiliation, powerlessness, despair, revulsion toward immorality, disillusionment with the system, and class struggle constantly simmer within the mind of the common man. It spills over only occasionally through petty arguments or domestic turmoil. Otherwise, it stays bottled up inside. Watching Nana perform felt like looking into this emotional pressure cooker of ordinary lives. When Nana, or the 'Angry Young Man' Amitabh Bachchan, confronted these realities on screen, they vented the steam trapped within the human psyche. As I often say, just as singers and composers like Lata didi, Asha tai, Kishore Kumar, and Rafi sahab, along with filmmakers, playwrights, directors, and artists, entertained Indian minds for at least 60 to 70 years, figures like Nana and Bachchan Sahab powerfully released that inner steam on screen. Had they not done so, chaos might have erupted in this country every month. Watching Nana act always reminded me of Hollywood's Morgan Freeman. Neither fit the conventional type of Bollywood or Hollywood actors of their times in terms of looks or persona. Watching Morgan Freeman, one often feels this is a man who has absorbed wisdom, patience, and a quiet acceptance of things as they are over time. With Nana's acting, however, I sensed fury, restlessness, and a deeply entrenched despair. Freeman represents a man who seems to have seen it all; Nana represents a man who has endured too much and can take no more. These are two opposite ends of the human spectrum. Because Nana could bring that second extreme to the screen with raw authenticity, he was a truly great artist. In the 2000s, polished, fair, and conventional leading men began making way for story-driven cinema, ushering in an era of character actors who could carry a narrative and draw audiences on merit. Nana was undoubtedly the pioneer of this era. The prominence that character actors enjoy today was paved by Nana. Yet, despite all this, he was fiercely individualistic, spoke his mind without filter, and was outspoken (though it hardly suits me to call anyone outspoken; be that as it may). Because of this, even when producers and directors wished to cast him, they often hesitated. Did this hurt Nana? One cannot say; he remained indifferent. But it certainly deprived Hindi cinema and its audience. While Nawazuddin Siddiqui and the late Irrfan Khan were undoubtedly brilliant performers, one wonders whether they and others like them would have found those same opportunities had Nana been willing to compromise. Moreover, Nana was not confined to aggressive or intense roles, through films like ‘Welcome’, he demonstrated to the world that he could handle comedy with equal prowess.