Asrani's first acting role was in a FTII training film directed by Ritwik Ghatak, says film scholar

The news of Asrani's passing led to several forms of obituaries honouring the multi-faceted talent who had a five-decade legacy in Hindi cinema. It's widely believed that Asrani made his debut in Kishore Sahu's 1967 film 'Hare Kaanch Ki Choodiyan,' where he played the friend of actor Biswajeet.

However, a film researcher named Debasis Mukhopadhyay recently pointed out on social media that Asrani's very first acting role was in a short film directed by the iconic Bengali director Ritwik Ghatak.

Asrani starred in the FTII film Fear, directed by Ritwik Ghatak

Asrani studied at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, from 1964 to 1966. And Ritwik Ghatak served as the Vice Principal and Head of the Direction Department at FTII for a few months in 1965, and also taught at the institute.

Debasis Mukhopadhyay shared on Facebook that during this phase Ghatak directed Fear, in which Asrani had his first acting role. That short film experience became Asrani’s true on-screen debut, years before his foray into mainstream Hindi cinema a year later.

"Today, all the newspapers have published the news of the death of the famous and popular Hindi film actor Asrani. Almost every paper has published that his first film 'Hare Kaach Ki Chudiyaan' was released in 1967. It is also written that he was a student of the Film and Television Institute of Pune. But nowhere has it been written that Asrani acted in his first film under the direction of Ritwik Ghatak," wrote Debasis Mukhopadhyay along with some snippets from the film and the cast list.

He continued, "In 1964, Ritwik was a professor at the Pune Film Institute. In 1965, he made a short film about the students of the acting course of 1964-65. It was called 'Fear'. This was Asrani's first acting role. The film was made in the backdrop of a shelter for those who were rescued from the atom bomb. The film started with Asrani."

Mukhopadhyay shared that in the film, Asrani played the role of a captain, he had only a couple of lines.

Ghatak was known for his socially aware filmmaking and had a profound influence on several FTII students, not only Asrani, but also Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Mani Kaul, and Subhash Ghai, among others.

Earlier this year, FTII released a newly restored 4K version of Fear, which is available on FTII’s official YouTube channel. The film also starred Subhash Ghai, Sudha Rani, Urvashi Dutta and Govardhan Sharma.

The film was originally created as a training film for acting students and the restoration is part of FTII’s ongoing effort to preserve and showcase its cinematic heritage under the National Film Heritage Mission (NFHM).

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