Bollywood Veteran actor AK Hangal dies at 97!

Bollywood veteran actor and theatre artist, AK Hangal, is no more now as he died yesterday morning on August 26 at the age of 97. Hangal was fighting against prolonged illness aggravated by a recent hip fracture but yesterday he lost his battle and left millions of his fans in sorrow.

Hangal’s last rites were performed by his son Vijay, who also shared his thoughts with the media afterwards.

“I am sad at my father’s demise. But what can one say, one has to go,” he told reporters at the Ville Parle Crematorium after the funeral, which took place at 1:00 pm.

Hangal was a freedom fighter from 1929-1947 before he became a character actor in Hindi language films in 1966. He entertained many out there with his magnificent acting skills yet Raza Murad, Rakesh Bedi, Ila Arun and Akhilendra Mishra were the only people from the industry, who attended his funeral.

“It is a great loss. He was a freedom fighter and a great actor. He was a great human being. I have learnt a lot from him as an actor. It is sad that people from the industry didn’t turn up,” Raza Murad told the media.

There was a time when Hangal, who was admitted to the Asha Parekh Hospital on August 16 following a hip fracture, was considered as the ‘uncrowned king of theatre’. He was not very keen to work in Bollywood films but somehow ended up playing roles like loving father or grandfather.

In his autobiography ‘The Life and Time of AK Hangal’, he explained how he ended up joining films and how he struggled to shake off his ‘gentleman’ image in the tinsel town without much success.

“I never had ambitions about pursuing a career in films and was quite content with my amateur theatre work … Circumstances pulled me into the film world, though I am not unhappy because of it. Here, I mingled with people from completely different sphere, called ‘Show Business’, and even after many years in it, sometimes I feel like an outsider,” he wrote.

AK Hangal played roles in films like Sholay, Shaukeen, Namak Haram, Aaina, Avtaar, Anamika and Parichay.

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Posted by Imran Shaukat Khan on Aug 27 2012. Filed under Bollywood. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.