Prashanta Nanda (born 2 May 1947[1]) is an Indian director,actor and politician from the state of Odisha. He is currently a Member of Parliament at Rajya Sabha,the upper house of the Indian Parliament,for Odisha.[2] He had worked predominantly in Odia film industry but also worked in Bengali film industry and Hindi film industry extensively. He was also a former minister in Odisha state.[3][4]
From his childhood,he showed an interest in acting by participating in different dramas from his school days. He performed in a children's program named Sishu Sansar for Cuttack's All India Radio with the character named Bulu.
Career
He started his acting career from early young age. While performing in a drama at Kala Vikash Kendra of Cuttack,Kaviraj Krushna Chandra Tripathy and Dhira Biswal choose him for the Odia movie Dasyu Ratnakar.
At first he has given direction to 1975 Odia movie Mamata. But due to his young age,the producer suggested not to disclose his name. So he has given veteran actor Byomkesh Tripathy's name in the credits.
The whole shooting of the movie Naiyya was done in the bank of Mahanadi near Cuttack. The film's music was given by the legendary musician Ravindra Jain. He again collaborated with Rajshri Productions with movie Paheli. He has also given his direction in 1984 Hindi movie,Grahasthi starring Yogeeta Bali,Suresh Oberoi and Ashok Kumar.
The Odia movie Maa O Mamata,based on a short story written by him while he was in his 9th standard. His mother found out his story diary and showed to his father. They were worried about his future,because of the content of story written by a school going boy. For that they punished him.
Later,in 1980,Nanda made a movie named Maa O Mamata,where he was the lead actor along with Mahasweta Ray,Hemant Das and Anita Das. The movie was a blockbuster at that time. His father never saw his films,but by hearing a lot of appreciation from everyone's mouth,he asked him about the movie and showed interest to watch it. After watching the movie,he was surprised and asked where he found this kind of story. In reply,Prashanta said,the story was the same as what he had written in that diary in his childhood for which they had punished him and hid that diary. After that,his father got emotional with happiness and told him,As a parent,sometimes we behave more protective towards our children,and we never want our child to go the wrong way but it is difficult to find what talents our child has gifted by god.
While sharing the story of Maa O Mamata,Nanda has shared one of the songs Jane Radha Jane Meera and some parts of the film with the veteran Bollywood actor Raj Kapoor. Later,the song lyrics and theme of the movie Maa O Mamata reflects in his 1985 film Ram Teri Ganga Maili.
In 2013,it was announced that he had joined other Bollywood and international celebrities in the TeachAids initiative,a state-of-the-art approach to worldwide HIV prevention,developed at Stanford University.[7]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
