Do real-life friends make good co-stars? Yes, if they are Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah
When two great actors pair up in a film, chances are that their collaboration will take the production to new heights. When these actors happen to be friends and contemporaries, you are in for a very special treat – as is clear from the pairing of Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri.
Shah and Puri were old friends from the National Institute of Drama in Delhi. In the 1970s, Shah persuaded Puri to follow him to the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune, and supported him during his days of financial hardship.
The friends started their careers around the same time in Indian New Wave films directed by Shyam Benegal and Govind Nihalani. Their first performance together in major roles was in Nihalani’s Aakrosh (1980), a sad commentary on the exploitation of the lower socio-economic strata. Puri plays Lahanya Bhiku, the peasant who has retreated into a catatonic silence after the rape of his wife (Smita Patil). Shah is Bhaskar Kulkarni, the defence lawyer who tries to save Bhiku from the charge of having killed his wife.