tDid the owner of an ₹80 crore net worth leave behind only 12 maunds of dry wood in his will? After 35 years of living apart from his wife Nilakanti, will she legally become the true owner of his multi-crore empire? Or has the entire game of the will changed at the very last moment? What happened after Nana Patekar sent his last text message to his friend at 2:30 AM in his luxury Goa home, which forced the police to register a case the very next day after his funeral? And right after lighting his father’s funeral pyre, what are the three biggest secrets about Nana’s property and the handover of his multi-crore foundations that his son, Malhar Patekar, revealed in front of media cameras?Friends, the most fearless, honest, and mysterious Sultan of Bollywood and Marathi cinema has bid farewell to this world forever. On the morning of October 8, 2026, a news broke out from Manipal Hospital in Goa that stunned the entire country. At the age of 75, the thread of Nana Patekar’s breath had suddenly snapped. But Nana Patekar’s story is not the story of any ordinary film star; because this is the story of a man who, despite earning crores, slept in a small 1BHP flat and who, just before his death, made a division of his heritage that even the big giants of the film industry had no inkling of.This chilling sequence begins on the intervening night of October 7 and 8, 2026, when Nana Patekar was all alone in his quiet home in Goa. Even at the age of 75, Nana was so fit that a video of him working out a short while ago had shocked youngsters on social media. But as the hands of the clock struck 2:30 AM, Nana Patekar suddenly felt a strange, sharp pain in the left side of his chest. At exactly 2:30 AM, Nana picked up his mobile phone and sent a text message to a very close friend saying that he was not feeling well and was experiencing chest discomfort.However, what happened inside that house between this last message sent at 2:30 AM and 4:00 AM in the morning? This is the exact one-and-a-half hours that raised the most questions. Many people on social media also questioned how it took so long for help to arrive after the 2:30 AM message. When that friend of Nana’s reached his house in a panic at 4:00 AM, the sight inside made the ground slip from under his feet because Nana Patekar was lying unconscious in his house, fighting for his last breath. An ambulance was immediately called to the spot.According to hospital doctor Shekhar Salkar, when his team arrived there after 4:00 AM, there was no movement in Nana’s body.
Inside the hospital’s emergency room, the team of doctors continuously gave CPR for a full 45 minutes to an hour, making every possible effort to bring back his heartbeat. But at 5:20 AM, the team of doctors announced that Nana Patekar could not be saved. Everyone thought this too was just a rumor. But when Nana’s son Malhar himself confirmed in a trembling voice that the news was true and that he was reaching Goa, only then did the entire country believe it.While the news of death turned out to be true, the real suspense and legal twist in this tragic incident came to light the very next day after Nana’s funeral, when Goa Police suddenly entered the case. Just a day after Nana Patekar’s departure, a case of unnatural death was suddenly registered at the Panaji Police Station. In fact, investigation of police and medical records revealed that when Nana was brought from his home to the casualty ward of the hospital, he was recorded in the file as dead even before reaching the hospital.Starting his journey in 1978 with the film Gaman, winning three National Awards, four Filmfare Awards for films like Parinda and Krantiveer, and the Padma Shri in 2013, Nana Patekar left behind a total net worth of around ₹50 crore to ₹80 crore. The biggest source of his earnings was his 50-year-long film career, where even in his final years, he charged a hefty fee of ₹2 to ₹3 crore for a single film. In his final days, he was working in Journey, a film directed by Gadar fame director Anil Sharma. He was also scheduled to appear on Sony Marathi’s show Kon Honar Crorepati with Madhuri Dixit starting October 12, but due to his sudden demise, the finale of the show had to be cancelled.Nana’s principle regarding money was quite unique. While he took crores in fees from producers, when director Rohit Shetty called him for a voiceover and cameo in his blockbuster film Golmaal Again, Nana flatly refused to take even ₹1 for the sake of friendship.However, a story even more shocking than this fee in crores is not of his bank balance, but of his real estate and properties. In Mayabnagri Mumbai, where new stars of today buy a ₹50 crore penthouse in Bandra or Juhu right after their first hit film, Nana Patekar—with a net worth of ₹80 crore—spent his entire life in a very ordinary 1 BHK flat of just 750 square feet in Mumbai’s Andheri area. Nana had bought this small flat decades ago during his struggle days for just ₹1.1 lakh, whose current market value has risen to around ₹3 crore. Nana used to live in this small house with his mother, Nirmala Patekar, and even after his mother’s passing, he never left this flat because of her memories.Apart from this ₹3 crore flat in Mumbai, his largest and most prized property is located in Donje village near Khadakwasla, Pune. Spread across 27 acres amidst hills is his massive farmhouse, which the whole of Maharashtra knows as Nanachi Wadi. This simple house built in the 27-acre farmhouse in Pune has seven rooms and a large hall, and today its value is in crores. But instead of turning it into a party hub, Nana got wheat and paddy cultivated here, and instead of keeping even a single rupee of the earnings from this farming for himself, he distributed it among the laborers and local poor farmers working there.Apart from this, he also has a house on Pune’s posh Law College Road. And the fourth major property is the modern house in Ocean Park, Dona Paula, Goa, where he took his last breath.When it comes to vehicles, his car collection consisted of only three vehicles: his favorite vintage Mahindra Jeep CJ4,
a Mahindra Scorpio, and a luxury Audi Q7.Now the biggest question arises: where did all the cash go of an actor who took crores of rupees for every film for 50 years and lived in a small flat himself? The answer to this question is hidden in an incident from 2015 when a ₹1.5 crore luxury car changed the very purpose of Nana Patekar’s life.In 2015, Nana had set aside ₹1.5 crore from the bank to buy a new luxury car. But right then, one night on TV, he saw a news report about widows of farmers committing suicide due to debt and their crying children. That news shook him so much that he immediately canceled the plan for his ₹1.5 crore car and, along with his friend and Marathi actor Makarand Anaspure, made checks of ₹15,000 each from that money and personally went to the villages of Latur and Beed to hand them over into the hands of hundreds of farmer widows.While distributing checks in a Latur hall, when the power suddenly went out for 5 minutes, the villagers turned on their mobile phone torches to provide light, and in that very light, Nana said emotionally: “Today I have found a purpose to live until my dying breath.” During that same time, at a program in Beed, a woman stood up from among 250 widow women and said in a trembling voice: “This help of ₹15,000 of yours will run our ration for 4 to 6 months, but give us support to stand on our own feet with dignity, not charity,” and saying this, the woman fainted right there.After that incident, in September 2015, Nana and Makarand together started the Naam Foundation. The magic of Nana’s honesty was such that on the very first day, the general public donated ₹80 lakh, and before long, more than ₹22 crore was collected in this foundation with the support of the middle class and common people. Naam Foundation adopted more than 700 farmer families in Nagpur, Latur, Hingoli, Parbhani, Nanded, and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. He ran a campaign with Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat to fill dried rivers and ponds with water, set up a flour mill for Vimal Gaikwad, a pregnant widow from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, and educated Vaibhav Kalyan, the son of a poor farmer from Latur, to make him an engineer. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also praised Nana for saving farmers’ lives without any publicity, to which Nana, mentioning Johnny Lever, said that this is not a favor but our responsibility.Apart from farmers, Nana also set up another major trust in memory of his parents named Nirmala Gajanand Foundation, which is directly connected to the Indian Army. From the 1991 film Prahar to the NDA in Khadakwasla, the Maratha Light Infantry, and the Kargil War, he shared a deep bond with the forces. Just a year before his death, in September 2025, after Operation Sindoor, when houses in border villages of Rajouri and Poonch in Jammu and Kashmir were destroyed in Pakistani shelling, 74-year-old Nana himself reached Rajouri. There, his Nirmala Gajanand Foundation, in collaboration with the Indian Army’s White Knight Corps, distributed a relief package of ₹42 lakh to 117 affected families, adopted 45 Army Goodwill Schools in Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, and sat in a Gurdwara langar, washing dirty utensils like an ordinary sevadar.As large-hearted as Nana—who showered crores on farmers and soldiers—was on the outside, his own married life and relationships were equally stormy. And this very story has become the biggest reason for the division of his will today.Born in Murud-Janjira and educated at Mumbai’s Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art, Nana’s father, Dinkar Gajanan Patekar, was a painter. Very few people know that Nana’s maternal uncle and several members of his maternal family were connected to the Mumbai underworld, and stories of his relations with Don Manya Surve were also discussed. Therefore, his mother Nirmala took him to the village to protect him from the world of crime.Later, during his theater days, Nana met Nilakanti, who, along with being a National Award-winning actress, was also a bank officer. In those days, Nilakanti used to get a salary of ₹2,500 per month from the bank, and she bore all the household expenses during Nana’s struggle days. Following this, in 1978, the two got married at an expense of just ₹750.However, after marriage, a mountain of sorrow broke upon them when their elder son, Durvasa, was born, who had a cleft lip and palate and a serious disease in one eye. Nana himself admitted in an interview that seeing his sick son, a selfish thought came to his mind: what would the world think about what Nana’s son looks like? And due to this very poor mindset, he began to loathe himself. Little Durvasa passed away at the tender age of two and a half, and to forget this grief, Nana started smoking 60 cigarettes a day, even keeping a cigarette in his mouth under the shower while bathing, which he later quit forever after being nudged by his sister.After the birth of their younger son, Malhar, cracks appeared in the relationship between Nana and Nilakanti in the 1990s. During the shooting of the film Agnisakshi in 1996 and then Khamoshi, the married Nana grew very close to actress Manisha Koirala, who was going through the pain of her breakup with Vivek Mushran at the time. Manisha wanted Nana to divorce his wife Nilakanti and marry her, but Nana flatly refused to divorce Nilakanti at any cost. Due to this matter and Nana’s over-possessive nature, quarrels started between the two, and when one day Manisha saw Nana Patekar and actress Ayesha Jhulka together in a closed room, after a massive uproar, Manisha broke off her relationship with Nana forever. However, Manisha also offered an emotional tribute upon Nana’s passing on October 8.Despite all these affairs and living separately for 35 years, Nilakanti never signed divorce papers, and this very decision of hers has now taken the biggest legal turn in the division of Nana’s ₹50 to ₹80 crore property.According to Indian law, whatever Nana Patekar earned in his 50-year career—
whether it is the ₹3 crore flat in Andheri, the 27-acre farmhouse in Pune, the house on Law College Road, the bungalow in Goa, or crores of rupees deposited in bank accounts—is all his self-acquired property. The law states that if a person has not made any separate written will public, then according to the Hindu Succession Act, all their private property is equally divided among Class I legal heirs. Since Nana and Nilakanti were never legally divorced even after living separately for 35 years, in the eyes of the law, wife Nilakanti Patekar and only son Malhar Patekar are the true and equal owners of Nana’s entire private empire.As for what Nana himself thought about his private will, he revealed it in an interview with Aaj Tak in 2023, saying that after death, a person requires only 12 maunds of wood, and those very 12 maunds of wood are my final property. He had already got those 12 maunds of dry wood cut and kept at his farmhouse for his funeral and had clearly told his family members not to use wet wood while cremating him, otherwise, smoke would bring water to people’s eyes, and at the time of death, he would have the misconception that people were crying for him.On the night of October 8, 2026, that very last wish of Nana was fulfilled when, after 20 to 30 minutes of final darshan at the Goa morgue, his mortal remains were brought to Pune, and his funeral was announced with full state honors. At exactly 11:28 PM, amidst a gun salute by the police, son Malhar lit his father’s funeral pyre and broke down in tears, while wife Nilakanti Patekar, standing close by, could not stop her tears.Son Malhar Patekar came in front of media cameras and revealed the three biggest secrets regarding the midnight funeral and the handover of the multi-crore foundations.First, Malhar clarified that the tragedy happened early in the morning and the whole day passed in traveling from Goa to Pune. Therefore, instead of keeping the mortal remains any longer, the family decided to perform the funeral at night itself.Second, Malhar stated that physically everyone has to leave one day, but for me, Nana Saheb will always be immortal; because if I accept that he is gone, I will be finished myself.Third, Malhar shared that Nana’s vision was always global—that people around the world should come together in the name of humanity to work for social welfare.And fourthly, while revealing the biggest secret of the multi-crore trusts’ will, Malhar shared that even before his death, Nana Patekar had officially handed over the complete responsibility and authority of both trusts—Naam Foundation and Nirmala Gajanand Foundation—to the next generation, i.e., Malhar and his young team. Not only this, after handing over both foundations to the new generation at the age of 75, Nana was preparing to go to a new place and start a completely new social project from absolute scratch, and now Malhar has taken a vow to carry forward this unfinished work of his father across three different verticals without any fanfare.
However, while on one hand, the son announced taking over his father’s legacy, on the other hand, even before the fire of the funeral pyre could cool down, two major controversies erupted over Nana’s death.The first controversy flared up regarding Bollywood’s apathy. While dignitaries like Eknath Shinde, Sunetra Pawar, Murlidhar Mohol, Ramdas Athawale, Chandrakant Patil, Uday Samant, and FDA Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe stood there until midnight, and Salman Khan even canceled his big event at Mumbai’s Taj Lands End hotel to catch a flight to Pune, while Shah Rukh Khan and Rajinikanth paid emotional tributes on social media, at the Pune farmhouse, only Jackie Shroff, Anil Sharma, Anees Bazmee, Firoz and Sajid Nadiadwala, Mehul Kumar, and Suresh Wadkar were seen from Bollywood. Angered by this, Marathi actor and director Pravin Tarde lashed out at Bollywood, saying that Bollywood is not bigger than Nana Patekar, and today the void of stars not showing up was filled by thousands of poor farmers who came themselves.The second bitter controversy erupted when actress Tanushree Dutta, who had accused Nana of #MeToo in 2018, posted words like Evil Dead (the end of evil) on his death. And although no evidence was ever found against Nana in court, and Nana himself apologized for the controversy over slapping a fan on a film set in Varanasi, Tanushree issued a new video on October 9 questioning whether a person’s deeds are washed clean just because they die.Amidst these controversies, that old video of Nana on social media is also giving people goosebumps, where he mentioned a spooky coincidence related to the historic Marathi play Natsamrat, stating that every artist who performed that play on stage—including Dr. Shriram Lagoo, Datta Bhat, and Chandrakant Gokhale—died of a heart attack. Fearing this, Nana had refused to perform that play on stage and only did the film. But see the play of destiny: Nana, who immortalized the character of Natsamrat on screen, also ultimately lost his life to a heart attack.Nana often used to say that we keep gathering wealth our whole lives, and then suddenly one morning the news comes that we had dinner together last night and didn’t wake up in the morning. On the morning of October 8, Nana proved those very words of his true. And today, even though his ₹50 to ₹80 crore private property will legally be in the name of his wife Nilakanti and son Malhar, before turning into the ashes of 12 maunds of dry wood, the true will of humanity that he has written in the name of the farmers and soldiers of this country in the form of his two foundations—no wealth in the world will ever be able to repay its value.
