Journalism of Courage
It was almost his reel life spilling over to his real life for a 34-year-old actor who played a major supporting role in National Award winning Marathi film Khwada, which deals with drought.
Prashant Ingale, who played the role of ‘Panda’ in the movie, tried to end his life by consuming a bottle of fungicide earlier this week.
Ingale, a farmer from a village in Shirur taluka in Pune district, has reportedly been under financial distress for some time and has a debt of Rs 3 lakh. He is a father of three children, two daughters and a son. Ingale is a high school drop-out.
According to his relatives, he worked sporadically and also sold milk to earn a living. He had borrowed Rs 1 lakh to build a one-room house a few years ago. Later, he incurred losses in onion farming due to water scarcity. The prospect of employment at somebody else’s farm too got bleak due to the drought situation.
“We suspect this prompted him to suicide attempt. Fortunately, we managed to save him. He spent four days at the Sassoon General Hospital and has now been discharged. He is on medication now,” said Vishnu Borkar, Ingale’s brother-in-law.
According to Borkar, Ingale has a flair for acting since his childhood and used to participate gatherings and theatrical performances at village and taluka level.
“He is obsessed about acting in movies. Finally, he got his big chance in Khwada. In the two years when the movie was being produced, everything else took a backseat. I suspect this added to the financial pressure,” said Borkar.
According to Bhausaheb Karhade, who produced and directed Khwada, seeing Ingale’s poor financial state he decided to pay remuneration to him when no other actor got any money. Karhade himself is reported to have sold his own agriculture land to finance the project.
“We were doing our rehearsal in village Karanjawane when Prashant approached me. He told me he desperately wanted to act in a movie. After seeing him act, I realised he had the requisite talent and cast him in a major role. He comes from a very poor background and hence I decided to pay him remuneration, unlike all other actors,” said Karhade.
He said later too he gave some financial help to Ingale when he got to know about latter’s plans to buy Jersey cows.
“I like him and am determined to cast him in my next project too. Somehow, we lost touch in last one year or so. When I got to know about this incident, I managed to get the phone number of one of his relatives and was relieved to know the is out of danger now,” said Karhade.
Ingale’s family said although he had been discharged from the hospital, his condition was still worrying. “He is muttering continuously and is getting fits. We don’t know how to get out of this condition,” said Ingale’s wife.
