Hail Mogambo!

Just so many of us must have begun Wednesday with our one Amrish Puri moment. The actor, who passed away on January 12 at age 72, was after ...

Just so many of us must have begun Wednesday with our one Amrish Puri moment. The actor, who passed away on January 12 at age 72, was after all something of an institution, particularly for Hindi film buffs of a certain age, the sort who grew up on Mr India, Shekhar Kapur8217;s best film before he became an intellectual. As recently as the Athens Olympics, one heard Indian fans cheering Paes and Bhupati to lusty cries of, 8216;8216;Go India 8230; Hail Mogambo.8217;8217;

For this writer, Mogambo 8212; the Fu Man Chu-esque uber villain who wanted to destroy India 8212; was not the role of recall. Pride of place went to Shahenshah 1988, among Amitabh Bachchan8217;s lesser films and one that starred Puri as a don called 8212; in typical Hindi film fashion 8212; 8216;8216;JK8217;8217;. He could have been Everybadman, playing out one of three dozen mutually replaceable characters.

What made JK stand out was a low-brow, high-drama sequence in Shahenshah. Staring menacingly at a female dancer doing her thing 8212; in 1988, nobody used the term 8216;8216;item number8217;8217; 8212; Puri/JK orders Black Dog whisky. A sidekick asks why he favours the brand. Here8217;s the answer: 8216;8216;Jab bhi mein gori haseeno ko dekhta hoon, mere dil me kale kutte bhaukne lagte hain. Tab mein Black Dog whisky peeta hoon. When I see fair-skinned beauties, black dogs bark in my heart. And then I order Black Dog whisky.8217;8217;

The reply, like the actor himself, was in a league of its own. At once crude, astounding, downright funny and the work of a creative script-writer, it brought out the strange truth that the best lines, nuances, gestures in a Hindi film are invariably the villain8217;s.

K.N. Singh8217;s booming voice that has little Raj Kapoor scurrying; gentleman Pran8217;s subtle movement of the eye, his curled lip; Ajit, the Last Lion 8230; er, Last Loin, with his outlandish dark glasses and outsize shoes: Amrish Puri was the final entrant to the pantheon. Now the others are gone, Pran is retired and only Danny Denzongpa perhaps remains. The lesser baddies 8212; from Prem Chopra to Gulshan Grover 8212; never quite made the cut. Kader Khan was too busy trying to be comic to be seriously evil. Anupam Kher had potential but went too early into 8216;8216;good man8217;8217; roles.

Puri was versatile. As a villain, he could be bizarre 8212; the Italian-sounding Marcelloni in Commando, Bujang in Tridev. He could be Mr Sleazeball 8212; as the rancher in Jaanbaaz, a take on Duel in the Sun 1946, with Puri in a role originally written for Lionel Barrymore. He could be real sadistic 8212; the jailor in Sazaa-e-Kala Paani, corrupt lawyer Chaddha in Damini, the malevolent Bihari feudal lord in Koyla. He could make us laugh Chachi 420. He could make us cry: Ardh Satya notwithstanding, his best performance as a non-villain, in fact as a victim, was perhaps in Gardish, a powerful film that, alas, fell off the radar. As did, this morning, Amrish Puri.