Asrani Death: Indira Gandhi HELPED the struggling actor get his BREAK in Bollywood? Know the truth

Asrani Death News: On Monday, October 20, veteran actor Govardhan Asrani, who was most famous for playing the jailer in Sholay, died at the age of 84 following a protracted illness. His final ceremonies took place at the Santacruz Crematorium in Mumbai. Over the course of his more than fifty-year career, Asrani made over 350 film appearances. He refined his skills at the cinema and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, before joining the Hindi cinema business in the middle of the 1960s.

In a previous interview with Bollywood Thikana, he talked about how, after two years of struggling to get employment despite having an FTII degree, Indira Gandhi assisted him.

Asrani joined FTII when he was...

Asrani revealed that he spent a month looking for music director Naushad when he initially arrived in Mumbai as a young man in the hopes that he would assist him land an acting role. After it didn't work out, he went back to Jaipur, his birthplace, where his parents asked him to work at their carpet store. Asrani, however, had different ideas and applied to FTII, where he was accepted into the first batch of the institute.

When Asrani got a reality check

In order to make ends meet, he returned to FTII as a teacher after learning that his certificate from the institute has no significance in Bollywood. He said, "I would roam around with my certificate, and they would shoo me away and say, 'You think acting requires certificates? Big stars don't have training here, and you think you're special? Get lost.'"

When Indira Gandhi helped Asrani

Further, he continued, "For two years, I was struggling to find work. One day, Indira Gandhi came to Pune. She was the I&B minister at the time. And we complained to her. We told her that despite having a certificate, nobody gives us the time of day. Then she came to Mumbai and told producers that they should hire us. After that, work started coming in. Jaya Bhaduri was cast in Guddi, as was I. When Guddi became a hit, people started taking FTII seriously."