When Navtej Bharati and I saw Om Puri in 1999 in his Mumbai apartment he lived with writer Nandita Puri and their son Ishaan. An…d a dog that was blind. Om said he picked up the dog when it was a blind puppy abandoned by his mother on this very apartment street; we raised him along with Ishaan, he said. The little story was so moving, said so much more about the great actor.

And those who met Puri know he was a Punjabi in and out. When we presented him a copy of our newly published book Leela he immediately opened it and read a poem to three of us, including Nandita who being a Bengali merely smiled. (The picture was taken by Shahzad N Khan,  Vancouver, 2010)