Veteran film publicist R.R. Pathak breathed his last today (18th July) at his residence in Bombay. He passed away due to age-related problems. He was in his eighties. He had handled the publicity work of a number of films in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s mainly. Although he continued to be a film publicist after that too, he had reduced his assignments as the younger lot of PROs and PR agencies took over.
Pathak was an asthamatic and had not been keeping good health since quite a long time. He is survived by his son, Rahul Pathak, daughter-in-law and a grandchild.
Rajaram Pathak, known in film circles as R.R. Pathak, came to Bombay from Varanasi because he was fond of films and used to write letters to the editors of film glossies and also wrote some articles which got published in film magazines. Dhirendra Kishen, a well-known still photographer of the film industry in those days (1960s), helped Pathak in his early days. Film journalist Suroor Lucknowi was also a great help for Pathak to make the industry his home. Gopal Srivastava, himself a publicist, introduced Pathak to producer-director Arjun Hingorani when he (Gopal Srivastava) was going out of town. Hingorani gave Pathak the publicity work of his Kab? Kyoon? Aur Kahan?, after which there was no looking back for the publicist. Before that, he had done the publicity work of a couple of small-budget films. Pathak was the PRO of Aamir Khan’s first film, Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, Hrithik Roshan’s debut film, Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai, and Ajay Devgan’s maiden film, Phool Aur Kaante. He also handled the publicity work of many South films directed by K. Bapaiah and other filmmakers. In all, he was the official PRO of more than 300 films in a career spanning almost 50 years. R.R. Pathak was fluent in more than ten vernacular languages, besides Hindi and English. This helped him maintain a fantastic rapport with journalists of vernacular newspapers and film magazines. Even otherwise, he was extremely cordial with journalists and producers alike.
He had even turned a producer to launch his son, Rahul, as a director. The Marathi film, Tu Bold Mee Cold, starring Rahul’s wife in the female lead, tanked at the box-office.