Amol Palekar calls his last film Paheli a pleasant exception; (below) the actor-turned-film-maker at Gorky Sadan on Saturday. Picture by Aranya Sen

I was always an actor by accident, a producer by compulsion and a director by choice. And accidents should never be repeated.? That was Amol Palekar summing up his film career on Saturday evening at Nandan, meant to round off the Hrishikesh Mukherjee Retrospective at Gorky Sadan.

When a lady from the audience shouted, ?We loved those accidents?, a smiling Palekar replied, ?I loved them too. Those were the most enriching years of my life. How else could someone get the most practical apprenticeship in film-making from the likes of Kumar Shahani, Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Shyam Benegal.?

In the middle of post-production work of his latest film Thaang, Palekar postponed his final mixing by a day just to be present at the closing moments of Hrishida?s retrospective which concluded with the classic Golmaal. ?Let me just say that had it been someone else I wouldn?t have been here. I am here to pay my respect to the man who had given so much to me. He has not only been a tremendous source of inspiration to me, he has been the patron for a lot of young film-makers who have wanted to make films beyond the mainstream.?

Taking the trip down memory lane, Palekar narrated some remarkable anecdotes about his bonding with Hrishida. How they decided on making five films together, the very first time they met. How the director wanted to make his last film Jhooth Bole Kauwa Kaate with him and Utpal Dutt long before it got made with Anil Kapoor and Amrish Puri. And how Hrishida passed on to Palekar the director?s kaleidoscope gifted to him by Bimal Roy.

Coming back to his own exploits behind the camera, Palekar spoke about his new Marathi/English bilingual Thaang (titled Quest in English) as his third and last film of his trilogy on sexuality. ?Daayraa was the first, Anaahat the second and Thaang is the third. Meaning unfathomable, Thaang is very much a contemporary story about young people unlike Anaahat which was a period piece.?

No Amol Palekar chat has been complete in recent months without a mention of Paheli, his last directorial project which made more noise as an Oscar entry than at the box-office. ?It was very different from the kind of films I make in terms of budget and star cast,? he said on Saturday. ?And I feel I made a beautiful and excellent film. Paheli, to me, was a pleasant exception.?

But now it?s back to making movies his way, something he started way back in 1981 with Akriet. ?It seems pre-historic now but to make films on one?s own terms for 25 years is a tough journey that I think I have been able to travel,? he smiled.