Actor Dinesh Thakur passes away | Actor Dinesh Thakur's biography

Most Hindi film lovers would remember him as the seriouslooking, cigarette-smoking, exflame of heroine Vidya Sinha in Basu Chatterji’s critically lauded and commercially successful ‘Rajnigandha’ (1974). But Dinesh Thakur, who passed away after a prolonged illness in a Mumbai hospital on Thursday, also played a seminal role in helping Hindi theatre find its feet in Mumbai. He was 65.
    “At a time when commercial Marathi and Gujarati plays ruled the roost, Thakur created an audience for good Hindi theatre in Mumbai. He trained and promoted new actors. He gave priority to theatre over cinema,” says theatre director Arvind Gaur. Among Thakur’s more famous works are Vijay Tendulkar’s ‘Jaat Hi Poochho Sadhu Ki’ and ‘Kamala’, as well as ‘Hai Mera Dil’, an adaptation from a Broadway play that ran for a record 1,000 plus shows.
    “The Jaipur-born Thakur went to Delhi’s Kirori Mal College where he ventured into the college’s famous dramatic society following encouragement from the legendary professor Frank Thakurdas,” says Prayag Shukla, an old friend of the actor. A post-graduate in Hindi literature, he started working with Delhi’s Hindustani Theatre by 1964. Over the years, he worked with a host of creative units before starting his own Ank Theatre Group in 1976 for which he designed and directed more than 60 plays.
    But much before that, his acting in theatre had attracted Hindi cinema directors. “I gave him the role in Rajnigandha after watching one of his plays,” recalls director Chatterji. It was impossible to visualise him without a beard after that film.
    “Before the shooting started, Basu da asked him to help me with the dialogues. Since he came from theatre, his voice control and dialogue delivery were impeccable,” recalls Vidya Sinha, the film’s heroine. Adds Gaur, “His performances were always detailed and nuanced.”
    Director Basu Bhattacharya noticed him acting for Om Shivpuri’s group Dishantar in Mohan Rakesh’s play, ‘Aadhe Adhure’. “That’s how he got the part in Anubhav (1971) where he played the third angle in a marital triangle. He also used to help Basu with the dialogues and shared a close association with him,” says Rinki Roy-Bhattacharya, the late director’s ex-wife.
    Thakur also wrote the screenplay and dialogue of ‘Aastha’ (1997), Bhattacharya’s last film and acted in his ‘Grihapravesh’ (1979) and ‘Panchwati’ (1990). Few know that he also wrote the story and screenplay of ‘Ghar’ (1978), a sensitive film on a married middle-class housewife’s plight after she is raped by four goons. The film earned him the Filmfare Best Story award.
    The actor made his film debut in Gulzar’s ‘Mere Apne’, a film on youth unrest. Thakur played the angriest young man in a wild bunch.
    Thakur made an impact in both ‘Mere Apne’ and ‘Rajnigandha’ but his talent was vastly underutilised in the unimaginative Hindi film industry. Strangely, he was hardly seen in parallel cinema too. Instead he did a bunch of forgettable cameos for Bollywood biggies such as B R Chopra’s ‘Karm, The Burning Train’ and Ramanand Sagar’s ‘Jalte Badan, Baghawat’. Cinema’s loss was theatre’s gain.