Very few actors are exceptionally generous about their colleagues’ works and not afraid to show their appreciation. Om Puri who has a small part in Prakash Jha’s <em>Chakravyuh</em> was so impressed by Arjun Rampal’s performance in the film that he called up Arjun’s wife Mehr Jessia to ask her about the nature of the food being served on the Rampals’ dining table. Mehr, we hear, was zapped by Om’s rather personal question before she cottoned on to the seasoned actor’s meaning.

Two senior actors Nana Patekar and Om Puri, who are pitted together in Percept Pictures' Kamaal Dhamaal Malamaal after a gap of after 30 years, are the ones who enjoy every moment of shooting together. In fact Puri gets immensely annoyed at somebody when he calls Nana Patekar Buddha. “How can you call him an oldie? He is my son from my last birth,” he goes on to add. Nana on the other hand keeps teasing Om Puri for his continual sleeping habits and grins that the senior actor can sleep even in the pauses between words!

Prakash Jha’s best-kept secret in his new film Chakravyuha exploring Maoist insurgency is out. Om Puri plays the real-life character of the controversial capitalist-turned-Maoist Kobad Ghandy. Ghandy’s fascinating journey from Malabar Hill to the Naxalite jungles of Karnataka has flummoxed, fascinated and fired the imagination of generations of social scientists. At 63, Ghandy’s saga continues to be in enigma of social protest and insurgency.