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Nana Patekar met Ajit ‘Dada’ Pawar when both were young and unknown. Five decades on, the friends are gone, eight months apart, and Maharashtra is remembering their bond.
Nana Patekar and Ajit Pawar at Patekar’s home, in happier times. For those who find comfort in imagining that friends meet again somewhere beyond, the picture is not hard to draw.
Nana Patekar and Ajit Pawar were friends for nearly five decades, long before one became a screen legend and the other Maharashtra’s Deputy Chief Minister. Pawar died in a plane crash on January 28; Patekar followed on October 8. The friendship they kept very private is what Maharashtra now remembers.
Patekar, who died at 75 in Goa after what doctors said was a cardiac arrest, never made much of the bond in public.
Pawar, 66, was known across the state as “Dada”. He was a grassroots worker when they met, and he rose to hold the state’s second-highest office. The friendship survived both men’s fame and Maharashtra’s politics, and it stayed out of the spotlight.
Only after Pawar’s death did the state see how close the two had been. By then, Patekar had been asked to speak about it.
How Did Two Young Men From Different Worlds Become Friends?
By Patekar’s own account, it began before either was known to the public. “Dada was a worker,” he said in Marathi, in remarks reported after Pawar’s death. Whenever he visited Baramati, he said, Pawar looked after everything for him.
He recalled that Pawar would have been 18 or 19 then, he himself 25 and Sharad Pawar 35. “Fifty years is a very long association,” he said. “There are so many memories.”
What Did Nana Patekar Call Ajit Pawar?
A friend, and more than that. “He was a wonderful friend,” Patekar said. “He was like my younger brother.” He spoke of Pawar’s journey, from a young worker to where he reached, as “a remarkable journey”. He asked that politics be left aside. “I will always miss him,” he said.
Why Did He Say It Was Better Not To Speak Of It?
Because, in Patekar’s view, friendship is not something to display once a man is gone. “When a person becomes big, people talk about his friendships,” he said. “But now he is no more, so it is better not to speak about it.”
It was typical of Patekar, who lived simply in a one-bedroom flat and a village among hills, and who said he was “just an ordinary man”.
What Happened After January 28?
According to Marathi media reports, Patekar was overcome with emotion at a condolence meeting for Pawar. He was not asked to speak at length, so he paid his respects before the late leader’s portrait and stepped down from the stage. A Hindi report said he was devastated by the loss.
Some weeks later, about 29 days after the crash, he visited Pawar’s wife, Sunetra Pawar, and the family. “No one can share the sorrow she is facing,” he told ANI. “We are sad too, but her pain is like a mountain. She will have to bear it herself.”
He added that along with the loss, she would have to take on the responsibilities Pawar had carried as Deputy Chief Minister. “It will take time,” he said.
What Do The Photographs Show?
A day after the crash, Patekar’s son Malhar shared rare photographs of Pawar at the family’s farmhouse near Pune. They showed informal, private visits. Malhar wrote that Pawar was “like family”. The pictures offered a softer view of a leader usually seen through the lens of power.
What Would Their Next Meeting Look Like?
No one can say, and we doesn’t presume to. But for those who find comfort in imagining that friends meet again somewhere beyond, the picture is not hard to draw.
A man known for his punctuality would already be waiting. There would be no cameras and no politics, just two old friends who had known each other since before either was famous.
If there were hills on all four sides and no AC, as Patekar once described his own home, he would not have minded.
Patekar once spoke a line on screen that seems to speak to them both. A character tells another that people forget you after death, and asks who stays alive.
“Someone does,” he replies, “the heart for 10 minutes, the brain for 20, and the eyes for four hours.” The memory of friendship, Maharashtra is now finding, lasts longer than that.
Quick Answers
Ask News18Their bond started decades before either became famous, when Ajit Pawar was an 18 or 19-year-old grassroots worker in Baramati and Patekar was 25. Whenever Patekar visited Baramati, Pawar looked after everything for him, sparking a friendship that lasted nearly fifty years.
Ask News18About the Author
Sumedha Kirti is a Chief Sub Editor with over eight years of experience — both at the desk and reporting. She is a graduate from Delhi University’s Miranda House. Kirti has previously worked with news…Read More
October 08, 2026, 11:02 IST
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