MAN OF THE MOMENT: Om Puri in his younger days and (below) with his wife and biographer Nandita C. Puri at the book release

Om grew up in an environment almost devoid of women. His mother, Tara Devi, was the only woman he knew for years until he reached his Mamaji’s place in Sanaur. Moreover, Om’s memory of his mother was of a ‘grey and toothless’ woman. In Sanaur too, there were no girls of his age and the only women he knew were his maternal aunts and the maids. So it was but natural for Om to take a liking to older women.

He must have been around 14 when he was ‘deflowered’. A 55-year-old woman, Santi, used to provide general help in his maternal uncle’s house. Twice a day, water was drawn into the house with a hand pump and Om was asked to assist Santi in the job. Days went by and Om kept pressing the pump backwards and forwards, till one day he realised that Santi would first touch, then caress and finally fondle him during the task. The young boy began to get turned on without knowing what was happening to him.

One day there was a power failure and in the dark Santi grabbed Om, who was by then totally aroused. They slept together and the 14-year-old felt really great having ‘come of age’. Dark, greying, with a toothless grin, always dressed in half-torn salwars, Santi was Om’s first lover.

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When Om came to Bombay after the Film and Television Institute of India, he again got busy trying to make a living and women were out of consideration for a while, especially as they meant more expenditure from his meagre income. One day at Naseer and Jaspal’s (an actor friend) insistence (or so Om would like to assert), the trio set out to Grant Road, Bombay’s famous red light district. The first time, Om admits he came back, having got cold feet. The second time round, he went in and instantly developed a liking for the young girl who serviced him. Her name was Rekha.

The next time he visited her, he took paan for her. The romantic in Om could not help himself. Rekha accepted the paan but a couple of times later when she realised that the young man was falling in love with her, she gently told him off by asking him to get married.

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The first major ‘love of his life’ happened around 1982. While Om was staying as a paying guest at Ganga Vihar when Kulbhushan Kharbanda introduced him to Seema Sawhni, his girlfriend, who was a few years older to Om. She had seen Aakrosh and was impressed with Om’s work. Seema was the daughter of acclaimed firebrand writer Ismat Chughtai and filmmaker Shahid Latif. A former airhostess, she was busy trying to make a career in advertising at the time. She was well connected not only with the advertising crowd but also with the well-heeled South Bombay society.

It is said that opposites attract. Seema had all the qualities Om lacked and was to develop only later. Besides being attractive, she was intelligent, professional, extremely articulate and confident, while he was hesitant and shy and could barely express himself or his feelings properly. Om, of course, was immediately smitten by her charm and maturity. He found her very attractive as a woman and a person.

Om remembers the first time Seema displayed her feelings when they were in Kulbhushan’s Juhu apartment. Seema was then just breaking up with Kulbhushan, who had gone to the bathroom. Seema gave the inexperienced Om a full kiss on the mouth. ‘For me it was the most divine kiss,’ Om recollects. ‘I was in paradise.’ They started dating soon after.

For Seema, ‘He just bristled! He bristled with curiosity, with ambition, with anger, with affection and love, but most of all, he bristled with talent... I slowly realised that like an onion he had many layers and as they peeled off slowly, a person emerged who had managed to overcome an extremely difficult childhood and still had lots of love to give... Even as success touched him, it touched him lightly.’

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Om moved out of Ganga Vihar, but he often missed the hip and happening Marine Drive and his friends Subhash and Chinna. So anytime he was in between appointments in town, he would drop in for a cuppa or even stay on for dinner. On one such occasion, cupid struck.

It was evening and after having tea Om was leaving for Andheri (the Mumbai suburb) when Chinna asked him, ‘If you are going to Andheri, can you please drop Mala (Subhash’s sister Mala Dey, who later became a costume designer) at Dadar?’

‘Sure, why not. It’ll be on my way,’ Om said gallantly.

Om was single, footloose and fancy free. As they sat in the cab, on an impulse Om felt attracted to the pleasant-looking girl in a simple cotton saree who was talking enthusiastically about music. Gently, he placed his hand over hers. She did not shake it off. This emboldened Om and he told the cabbie to stop at Shivaji Park instead of Dadar, where they both got off. She seemed game for their little rendezvous but somehow ‘both of us were feeling awkward to go behind the bushes’. So they walked hand in hand to her paying guest accommodation instead. On the way, Om bought himself a quarter bottle of Old Monk rum, which has been his standard drink for years.

None of her roommates was around when they reached, so Om had his usual peg at her place. The alcohol gave him further courage and he embraced her. And thus their long relationship took off. A relationship that Om has long cherished.

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After Mala left him, Om got busy with work and his free time was spent looking after his nephews and Bauji. The house staff now consisted of a mother and daughter duo from Andhra Pradesh, Amma and her daughter Lakshmi. Initially, Lakshmi and Amma used to serve part time but seeing Om’s hapless predicament with his nephews after Mala’s departure, they stayed on to work full time. Between them, they did all the housework and Lakshmi took pains to manage things well. Also, whenever Om was at home, she made extra effort to cook special food for him and walked around the house coyly. She even flirted with him playfully. Om did not fail to notice all this.

Lakshmi had a dark and voluptuous matronly appearance and Om found her suitably attractive. Thus their short-term physical relationship began. A few months later, Om realised that Lakshmi was getting quite attached to him. And since he was feeling grateful to her, on the spur of the moment, he decided to marry her. Not so much out of love, but out of a sense of idealism. He was inspired by his friend from his drama school days, Sreelatha Swaminathan. Sreelatha was an educated city-bred girl who, while working with a non governmental organisation had married a tribal. Om thought he too could set an example for society. Or maybe he felt his reel life, where he acted out socially meaningful roles, should spill over into his real life.

‘Thank God I woke up quickly from my idealistic stupor and did not commit to Lakshmi. We had nothing, absolutely nothing in common. If I was doing it out of a sense of revenge or guilt for Mala, then I would have been the sole sufferer,’ says Om.