The OLD Campaigner

His son,Vijay Hangal,all of 74,is his only companion for the last 16 years in the modest rented accommodation in which they live in Mumbai’s suburb of Santacruz East. Vijay provides the basic information on his illustrious father as the actor is being given his lunch,so that time and the actor’s energy are not unnecessarily consumed.

“We are Kashmiri Pandits who settled in Peshawar some generations back. From there we moved to Karachi where our family lived till about 1949,” reveals Vijay. “During Partition when my father was jailed for two years for being a Leftist,he was released only on the condition that he would no longer stay in the city. My father saw no point in remaining in what is now Pakistan and moved to Mumbai.” Fills in Hangal,“I was also a part of the Samyukta Maharashtra Movement later. My grandfather Shambhu Nath Pandit was the first Indian judge of the Calcutta High Court,which in pre-Independence era included Bengal and Bihar. When I had gone to Bihar to shoot for a film,I visited the local museum and was amazed to see his portrait there with Queen Victoria. In Calcutta (now Kolkata) even a road and a hospital are named after him.”

Hangal’s father also occupied a respectable post during British rule,but the actor refused to serve under the British as he was fighting for freedom too. How did he reconcile being both a freedom fighter and a Leftist? “I think that an honest man can be both!” he says with a glint in his eye.

Hangal,reveals his son,was a man of multiple talents. “He loved to dress well,so he decided to become a tailor and was trained by an expert in Delhi long before Independence,” reveals Vijay. The knowledge came in useful when Hangal joined a South Mumbai shop named Anand Gents Tailor as his first Mumbai job and then began his own establishment in Mumbai’s Crawford Market.

But Hangal had other interests too. He enjoyed painting. He loved acting from childhood and would do theatre back home. In Mumbai,he also began doing theatre and later joined the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA). Showing us photographs of his theatre days as a handsome young man with a thick crop of hair,Hangal says that in Mumbai he soon became an addict of Marathi theatre,though he never acted in Marathi plays: “I liked Marathi theatre a lot. They had great subjects and artistes and I was a fan of actors like Dr Shreeram Lagoo. I had always been fond of theatre and none of the old plays were without music. So that got me interested and I learnt music from an Ustad for a while.” Hangal had even sung for Peshawar Radio.

The actor turns ‘real’
Then came a strange contradiction within the actor. “ I enjoyed Marathi theatre even though the format and grammar were 80 to 100 years old. But I decided to bring a change within me,and I changed to watching realistic plays,the modern theatre that had so many good plays.”

Hangal swears by realism and realistic theatre and acting. Says the veteran,“I had to relate with people and with time. I am very realistic even as a person. I could do the other kind of acting,like in some of my movies,but I knew what is needed to be a realistic actor. Do you know that there is a difference between natural and realistic acting,for example? A natural actor is,well,natural,but a realistic actor thinks of many things like timeframe,history of the character,his location,situation and his relationships.”

Somewhere within him lurked “a bit of a desire” to do films. “I could have gone out of the way to struggle. But I did not. Film people were not looked upon and I was not all that fond of movies. Films happened and I am happy they did because,compared to the stage,film acting is again more realistic,” says the actor.

However,his Leftist leanings as well as mindset did not make the actor realistic in terms of a business sense. “We all know what character artistes were paid then,” explains his son Vijay. “Hum iss profession mein the,par iss profession ke nahin the! (We were in this profession,but did not really belong here). Even after almost 200 films,my father did not even save enough to have a house of his own.”

The rise to fame
Hangal left the tailoring profession in 1964. He decided to concentrate on acting. Basu Bhattacharya was the first to sign the actor for Teesri Kasam in a small role as Raj Kapoor’s brother. But the film was delayed and Subodh Mukerji’s Shagird (in which he was Saira Banu’s father) released first in 1967. Hangal was thus exactly 50 when he started acting in films!

However,despite Shagird’s blockbuster run of 50 weeks,work did not come generously to Hangal. “As I said,I was not all that interested initially. I did get to do Dharti Kahe Pukar Ke,Sara Akash and Saat Hindustani. The roles increased gradually,” explains Hangal.

Soon,Hangal was to become a favourite character artiste,and a near-fixture in the films of Hrishikesh Mukherjee,Gulzar,Basu Chaterjee,Dev Anand,Anil Ganguly and others,dabbling also in television serials in India as well as abroad like Darkness and Lord Mountbatten – The Last Viceroy.

Some of his better-known roles included as the college principals in both Mere Apne and Jawani Diwani,the heroine’s father in Guddi and his most famous turn as Karim Chacha in Sholay. Anubhav,Bawarchi,Abhimaan. Kora Kagaz,Deewaar,Tapasya,Satyam Shivam Sundaram,Des Pardes,Kalyug, Baseraa,Arjun,Meri Jung,Khoon Bhari Maang,Khal-Nayak and Lagaan (his last hit in 2001) are some others.

And last but not the least,there was also Basu Chaterjee’s Shaukeeen (1982) where Hangal was one of the three old-men protagonists who are infatuated with a young girl. The actor smiles when we tell him that he was one of the heroes in that hit comedy!

Hangal quit acting due to old age. His last releases were Amol Palekar’s Paheli and Dev Anand’s Mr Prime Minister in 2005.

He shakes his head when asked if he would like to mention favourite roles. He also shakes his head when asked if he would like to mention filmmakers who honed his skills. “It was my own effort!” he declares. “I was different. All theatre actors in films were not as successful as I became. I can only credit filmmakers for being good people who gave me opportunities!”

He is also dismissive about not getting a single song to enact despite being so close to music. “That’s not important at all!” he declares.

The current focus
Hangal and his son Vijay have been in the news recently for his chronic medical condition and the attendant hype over his finances and all the aid he has received. His son Vijay clarifies,“I was a still photographer but left working in 2000. Since my father also quit acting we have no source of income. My father had to be repeatedly hospitalised since a few years and the medical expenses were the real strain on our finances. We had approached the then-Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan two years ago for help and he had promised us Rs 15,000 a month. But it did not happen and after the minister changed,we approached Ram Mohan,the actor who is also a social worker and looks after artistes’ welfare. He put us in touch with MP Gurudas Kamat who helped us a lot. Word spread and other parties,organisations and leaders also came forward to help,besides the film industry and sending in sums. We are extremely grateful to every one of them.”

A freedom fighter’s birth-date!
Vijay finally reveals the amusing saga of Hangal’s birthday,which actually falls on February 1. “A television crew once asked my father about his birthday and at that point of time,he did not remember his birth-date. So he said that since he had been a freedom fighter,they could mention it as January 26. But at that time,it was much later in the year and the crew suggested that since Republic Day had gone by,he could suggest another date! My father then told them that they could mention August 15,Independence Day,as his birthday. And that’s how my father’s birthday is said to be August 15 !”

rajiv.vijayakar@expressindia.com