Om Puri's wife Nandita Puri denies rift with him for mentioning his sexual encounter in her book: ‘All doctored’

Nandita Puri recently spoke about the controversy over her late husband Om Puri‘s biography – Unlikely Hero: The Story of Om Puri, written by her. She addressed the claims about rift between herself and her husband over mentioning about his private life in the biography. Nandita, in an interview with Siddharth Kannan said that the story about her differences with the veteran actor were fabricated by gossip journalists.(Also read: Friendship Day: When Om Puri saved Naseeruddin Shah’s life after a stabbing, lunged at attacker ‘with strangled cry’)

Nandita Puri on Om Puri’s biography

Nandita, on being asked if Om Puri was upset with her for revealing about his sexual encounters as a teenager in the book stated that, “No, these claims are false and doctored. I don’t believe in Wikipedia. The idea of writing a book came when I met him. He said, ‘You must write about me. My childhood is like Charlie Chaplin.’ His tough childhood inspired me to write not just about Om Puri, but the whole cinema movement and the people he worked with. It took me 16-17 years to write the book, despite several others wanting to write his biography.”

She further said, “Then I came to know that there was someone else who wants to write the book. So, she was quite upset and she told Om about it as her ex-husband was Om’s colleague. Om said, ‘I cannot say no to Nandita. You both write, whosoever writes better.’ Her cousin was a yellow journalist gossip film writer. He has been banned from the entire Indian publications. The wanted to teach me a lesson. So, Om felt bad about the whole thing. My publisher Roli Books and Tehelka office were on the same building. So, they would share the snippets. So, these guys got the snippets from there and said this is a bad book and claimed that the script wasn’t shown to Om Puri. Om said, ‘Let them write anything.’ But if you pull put a passage out of context, it can sound very bad. Om has never been bothered about his past. He was very clear about it and gave me everything in audio. Then these film gossip journalists took it over. That caused a little bit annoyance amongst us.”

Controversy over Om Puri’s book

There was a controversy related to the late actor’s biography–Unlikely Hero: Om Puri–which disclosed his alleged sexual encounters with his house helps when he was a teenager, Media reports stated that the content was alleged without the actor’s consent. The shocking revelation was all over the news in 2009 upon the book’s release.

About Om Puri

Om Puri was known for his work in both Indian cinema. He was praised for his author-backed roles in films such as Aakrosh (1980), Arohan (1982), Ardh Satya (1983), television films like Sadgati (1981) and Tamas (1987).