When Nana Patekar sustained severe burns on the sets of Parinda

Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s 1989 film Parinda, which has earned a cult status over the years, was long time in the making. The film went on the shooting floors in mid 1987 and concluded sometime in early 1989. During this period of 18 months, Chopra faced many hurdles on the sets and during production - but the biggest of those setbacks came when his film’s antagonist severely injured himself during shoot, and had to be hospitalised.

When Nana Patekar refused to wear fire suit 

Nana Patekar played Anna in Parinda, the film’s main antagonist who runs illegal trade of all sorts, and for whom both the protagonists of the film Kishan and Karan end up working. In the climactic sequence of the film, there is a sequence where Kishan sets fire to Anna’s room and Anna in order to protect himself gets on a swing.

In a video for his Youtube channel, filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra recalled that back in 1989, there was no way to digitally insert fire visuals in movies, and actors had to put on fire suits to shoot sequences like this. However, Chopra recalls, “Nana Patekar refused to wear a suit. He said mera acting kharab ho jaayega’ (My acting would suffer on account of this). When Vidhu Vinod Chopra refused to shoot the sequence with Nana having a fire suit on, Nana agreed to wear the vest but did not wear the pants, and did not tell Chopra either.

Nana Patekar was in hospital for 2 months after the incident

Later, when the crew began shooting the sequence, the fire flames went way higher than the team had planned, and those huge flames threatened to burn Nana Patekar. It was only when the fire burnt Nana’s right arm that he jumped into the safe area.

However, the damage was done already and Nana Patekar had sustained severe burns all over his body. Nana Patekar was in hospital for nearly 2 months, and it took almost a year for him to completely heal from the injuries.