Amitabh to Work with Prateik, Smita Patil's Son

News that Amitabh Bachchan would share screen space with Prateik Babbar in Prakash Jha's Aarakshan — shooting began in January 2011 — prompted a wave of reflection on one of Bollywood's most poignant what-might-have-beens. Prateik was the son of the legendary actress Smita Patil, who had died in December 1986 at thirty-one, just days after his birth, leaving behind a body of work that cinema historians consistently rank among the most significant in Indian film history.

The casting carried obvious emotional weight. Prateik was then a young actor attempting to build a creative identity in the same industry where his mother's legacy loomed large, and the news naturally revived public memory of Smita herself: her intensity, her commitment to roles that other actresses of her generation avoided for their commercial risk, and the presence she brought to both art cinema and mainstream films in a way that made the distinction feel temporarily irrelevant.

Aarakshan, which released in August 2011, would give Prateik one of his most visible early roles alongside Bachchan — but for that season in 2010, the announcement made India's film community pause and remember someone whose early death had deprived Indian cinema of decades of work.