Career
She created quite a stir with her plays in Gujarat in the 1940s. The audience queued up to watch her play the lead in Maina Gurjari, which is still one of most popular Bhavai's along with sister Shanta Gandhi's Jasma Odhan.
Although she made her film debut with a Gujarati film, Kariyawar (1948), she retreated back into theatre after acting just one film, only to return nearly two decades later.
Meanwhile she continued playing to packed audience in plays by Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) and Shanti Bardhan’s Ballet troupe. Later she formed her own theatre group in Ahmedabad called 'Natmandal', even today, she is remembered as a stalwart performer and a theatre activist at IPTA.
At 44 years of age, she made a comeback into films, with Basu Bhattacharya’s Uski Kahani (1966), for which she won the Bengal Journalists Association Award. She made four films in the 1960s, including Hrishikesh Mukherjee's classic Satyakam (1969), Saat Hindustani (1969), starring Amitabh Bachchan in his debut role and the Merchant Ivory Productions, The Guru (1969).
By the times 1970s, she had become a favourite of art and commercial films alike, playing powerful motherly and grandmotherly roles. It was in these films that she became recognized as the Grand-Old-Mother of Hindi films.
Films that stand out in this era are Gulzar's Mausam (1975), Kinara (1977), and Kitaab (1977), and sweet comedies like Basu Chatterjee’s Chitchor (1976), Gharaonda (1977), and also in an art cinema classic, Shyam Benegal’s Bhumika (1977), which saw her standing tall along side another acting legend, Smita Patil, in career best performance.
Just as the 1970s ended, she was seen in the comedy classic, Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Gol Maal (1979), where she essayed the role of Kamala Shrivastava, a middle-aged woman who sportingly plays mother to Amol Palekar, who went on to direct her in his 1985 film, Ankahee.
The next decade began with another career best, as a stern disciplinarian matriarch in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Khubsurat in (1980), closely followed by Bhavni Bhavai (1980). In 1980, she was also awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award. During the 80s she also appeared on the popular TV series, Malgudi Days, a Shankar Nag’s TV adaptation of R. K. Narayan’s eponymous classic. In 1984, she starred in David Lean classic A Passage to India. Though she had far from given career best she gave another powerful performance in Ketan Mehta's Mirch Masala (1985), Govind Nihalani's Tamas (1986) and once again she worked with Gulzar in Ijaazat (1987).
Perhaps her career best came in another comedy, when in 2002 she appeared in Indo-Canadian film, Deepa Mehta's Bollywood/Hollywood for which she was nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role at the 23rd Genie Awards.
She completed her last film, Pinjar (2003), but died before its release, due to heart attack, following a prolonged illness, on 11 October 2002 in Bandra, Bombay.
Read more about this topic: Dina Pathak
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“In time your relatives will come to accept the idea that a career is as important to you as your family. Of course, in time the polar ice cap will melt.”
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