Panaji: Veteran actor and filmmaker Nana Patekar, who rose from painting zebra crossings and printing movie posters to becoming one of Indian cinema’s most intense and earthy performers, died at his Goa home in the early hours of Thursday. He was 75.He is survived by wife Neelkanti and son Malhar.Patekar, whose searing presence could stand out even in an ensemble comedy, suffered a heart attack, doctors said.Patekar, who was staying at his Dona Paula flat, had messaged a friend around 2.30am that he was feeling uneasy and had “pain on the left side”, according to Manipal Hospitals oncology chief Dr Shekhar Salkar.But the friend saw the message late and reached the flat around 4am.“He (Patekar) was gasping and sweating,” Salkar said. “His caretaker was sent to get an ambulance from Manipal Hospitals, as we are close by. Our team reached with the ambulance and started CPR.”Salkar said Patekar was shifted to hospital while CPR was on, but “it was too late”. “We declared him dead at 5.20am. A medico-legal case was filed and the body was shifted to GMC for postmortem,” he said.Chief minister Pramod Sawant, who is in Delhi for the 57th GST Council meeting, said Patekar had met him about a month ago to discuss expanding NAAM Foundation’s activities in Goa.“Whenever he visited Goa, he would call on me. He had visited my official residence many times. He worked for farmers and others through his foundation and wanted to expand his work in Goa. We had discussed this just a month ago. It is very sad that this could not move forward. I have lost a close friend and share his family’s grief,” Sawant said.After the autopsy, Patekar’s body was kept at the GMC mortuary for people to pay their last respects.Among those who paid respects were actor Sayaji Shinde, art and culture minister Ramesh Tawadkar, GPCC president Girish Chodankar and BJP state president Damodar ‘Damu’ Naik.NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar visited the GMC mortuary to pay his respects. Maharashtra Marathi language minister Uday Samant also visited the morgue and said he had last spoken to Patekar about 10 days ago. Samant said Patekar had helped him during floods in his constituency.Patekar’s mortal remains were later airlifted to Pune for last rites.
