‘Smita Patil had some kind of intuition about her health,’ veteran journalist recalls actor’s last days, says she was ‘always in frail health’

Bhawana shared that she was at a fundraiser when Smita took ill, and by the time she reached home, she got a message that “Smita was in the hospital.” “By the afternoon, before I could reach the hospital, I was given inclination that she is in the ICU on the ventilator,” she shared.

ALSO READ | Prateik Smita Patil says he broke a TV set as mother Smita Patil’s movie was playing, took a baseball bat to all her photos: ‘I was extremely angry, bitter’

In a recent interview, Prateik shared that soon after his mother’s death, there was a battle for his custody between his father’s side of the family and his maternal grandparents, which was eventually won by the latter. In a video shared on Varinder Chawla’s YouTube channel, he shared, “I was born Prateik. There was a custody battle for me from my mom’s side of the family and my father’s side of the family. My mom’s side won. There was still a battle for the surname. Finally, in the passport, it was ‘Prateik Smit Babbar’. It wasn’t even Smita, so growing up I was ‘Prateik Smit Babbar’.”

Prateik, who now goes by Prateik Smita Patil, earlier went by Prateik Babbar. He shared, “In my first film, my name was Prateik Babbar and then the devil got the better of me and I started thinking ‘Kaun hai maa? Kaun hai baap? (Who is mom? Who is dad?)’ Then I started thinking, ‘I don’t want to be Patil, I don’t want to be Babbar. I want to be just Prateik.’ For a few films, I was only Prateik because I was bitter about my parents. I was like, I don’t want to belong to them. They have only given me trauma my entire life.” He eventually made peace with his name.