That time when Om Puri came to Edinburgh for a film festival and charmed everybody

“What made you think of me for a retrospective among so many more popular and relevant actors?”

Om Puri nearly stumped, asking humbly, almost self-deprecatingly, during the first Edinburgh Festival of Indian Films & Documentaries in September 2016.

Holding the mirror to a master can be a tad uneasy. What does one pick as the greatest bequest? How does one defend a legacy arguably going topsy-turvy of late? Especially since a year earlier, the University of Edinburgh bestowed an honorary doctorate on global superstar Shah Rukh Khan. His arrival had unleashed an online stampede for passes for his post-felicitation public speech. A university that had honoured Nobel laureates, scientists and religious and political leaders recorded its highest traffic – over 10 million hits on its site – around Khan’s visit.

The opening screening of Order of the British Empire recipient Om Puri’s Ardh Satya had been a far tamer affair. The low turnout may have slightly dampened his mood; Puri was also rumoured to not have been at his peak personally and professionally. Edinburgh, however, more than made up for it.

Unlike the predominantly South Asian fans mobbing Khan, Puri had a global audience, including young cinephiles and elderly white British fans, for whom his George Khan from East is East (1999) remains a shining “coloured part” that is frequently listed in most Best in British Cinema lists.

The other festival hit was Basu Bhattacharya’s Aastha (1997), a film still remembered for the wrong reasons. Before anybody could ask, Puri clarified that most of the intimate lovemaking scenes with his co-star Rekha were “unreal and trick photography”. He was keen that we show Aastha at the festival. It worked well since Aastha is the rare instance in Puri’s eclectic repertoire where he plays an academic.

Commercially, Aastha was Bhattacharya’s most successful film after a trilogy of acclaimed explorations on man-woman intimacies. Puri played a psychologically difficult character. How does a sensitive and philosophical man who is given to ruminating resolve his wife’s bartering of her body for money? The film’s lopsided denouement of the drivers of its complex plot have been criticised by some, but no one denies the finely nuanced, complex performances by Rekha and Puri.

When planning for the retrospective, I was wary of imposing my tastes and instead asked the legend for his selection. A good retrospective should never limit itself to the most acclaimed or popular in the subject’s repertoire, but also create the space to revisit forgotten glimpses of brilliance and the underrated in-between.

Featuring Govind Nihalani’s Ardh Satya was a given. But what was surprising was Puri’s choice of Susman (1988) from his prolific association with Shyam Benegal, Rajkumar Santoshi’s China Gate (1998), Aastha, and Udayan Prasad’s My Son the Fanatic (1997) from Puri’s many acclaimed British cinema outings. Piyush Jha’s King of Bollywood (2004) and Lasse Hallström’s The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014) were also added to the list.

All these films juggle genres – arthouse, action, comedy, drama and romance. Aastha perhaps is Puri’s lone on-screen romance in a predominantly serious filmography opposite a Bollywood star. China Gate is a tribute to the Western, and for Puri, his biggest lead role in a commercial film. Susman, a forgotten arthouse gem, became the festival’s discovery for Indophiles – a must-watch for every connoisseur looking for a good story around the Indian sari. Puri’s anecdotes on his actual weaving of a Pochampalli sari while playing a master weaver enthralled all of us.

What, according to Puri, was the secret of his success in playing characters of every hue, tradition, and emotion? He smiled and let the observant see and realise. His method, if there was one, was perhaps in his treatment of everyone he met, from class or mass, director or volunteer, waiter or restaurateur, critic or fan, with equal affection.

Om Puri mingled unconditionally and loved genuinely. To the mother of an eligible information technology executive and bachelor from the festival’s organising team, he promised to look for a homely Indian bride. For the caretaker at his bed and breakfast – a hard-working single mother – he wrote a letter, nearly delaying a panel discussion, to her daughter asking her to study better. Having met everyone’s spouse except mine, he made me call my wife in Mumbai to share a kind review.

Owning every interaction big or small, he won over everybody. In the evening, everyone was invited to a treat of fine whisky, graciously served by him, apart from a meal he cooked for the festival’s core team, almost at the cost of missing his return flight.

Puri’s only pre-festival request was to be part of as many interactions with “as diverse an audience he could meet”, across groups, interests, ages and calling. Every night he partied late, ate sparsely, and drank indulgently. When sober the next morning, he would confide about leaving alcohol, along with a knowing self-warning that it otherwise would do him in.

Unlike most visiting celebrities, Puri kept in touch even after the festival, promising to host a dinner featuring “the best chicken dish we would ever taste”. Gossip, stories, scandals and promises become meaningless after death, and are best forgotten. All that remains are those few moments of good work and some great conversations.

The writer is a film scholar and former Editor of Stardust. He is the Festival Director of the Edinburgh Festival of Indian Films & Documentaries that showcased a retrospective of Om Puri’s iconic films in September 2016 at Scotland.