The desi Fu Manchu

They should be the forget-me-nots in a perfect world. Unhappily, they aren’t. “Character actors”, an inadequate term has been employed since cinema immemorial for those who also stand and serve. Limelight moths, they aren’t.

They may be absolutely key to the plot as it thins and thickens. Yet in a medium which is severely atrophied, it’s the beautiful, cosmetic-enhanced people — invariably the hero and heroine — who find a place in the pantheon of legends.

This may be stating the obvious but there it is: Bollywood or Hollywood has scantly acknowledged artistes who don’t well over with the milk of human kindness. There are exceptions to the rule, for sure. In Hollywood, the ghastly gangster Edward G. Robinson, the terribly tetchy Thelma Ritter, the tough-talker Karl Malden and the needle-sharp Agnes Moorehead are still venerated.

At home, it took incalculable consistency — for the lovable Ashok Kumar, the multi-nuanced Balraj Sahni, the desi Cruella de Vil Lalita Pawar, the perenially sewing machine-bound maa Sulochana, the eternally lachrymose Nazir Hussain, the suave cop Iftekhar, and the all-time heavyweight champs of diabolical deeds, Amjad Khan and Amrish Puri — to break through the lead stardom barrier.

Don’t get me wrong, though. This isn’t an exercise in name sprinkling. More exceptions could be quoted by anyone who cares a whit for the unusual suspects in the litany of character actors. Mine is a random, subjective selection sparked by retired Lieutenant Colonel Kamlesh Puri’s book — My Father, The Villain: The Life and Times of Madan Puri. He was born in Lahore in 1915 and passed away after protracted illness in the city of showbiz in 1985.

Over three decades later, the Army officer salutes his bauji, Madan Puri, and an extended family dotted with as many names and dramatis personae as you could find in a Russian tome set in bygone centuries. Not that the memoir is anywhere close to being literary, far from it. Rather, here are simply worded anecdotes, warm comments and extensive quotes from the undervalued villain’s contemporaries.

And the most striking image which the son’s reminiscences offer is that of a taken-for-granted baddy, snatching moments of leisure while shaving every morning on his drawing room’s carpet which was the centre of his universe. The Puri household was located on Mumbai’s quaint Punjabi galli aka Hollywood Lane within the tree-lined enclave of Matunga.

Among the neighbours, there were Prithviraj Kapoor and Sons, the sharkskin-suited big boss K.N. Singh, and hefty actor-producer Jagdish Sethi. Once in the course of visiting K.N. Singh’s ground-floor home, I’d seen the lane’s survivors focused on playing rummy, cigarette smoke misting the small room, and the scent of premium whisky spraying the mini-casino. Incidentally, Lalita Pawar was winning the stakes, hands-down.

“Madan is missing today, he would have never let Lalita win so easily,” K.N. Singh had gruffed. “But he’s shooting somewhere in Madras, Kashmir or maybe Timbuktu. Can never keep track of him. He’s busier than all of us put together.”

That he was, incarnating the urban chiseller, the pre-Gabbar era daku, the drawing room smoothie, the gold biscuit smuggler, mafia monarch. And quite kinkily a Chinaman — modelled after Fu Manchu — in Howrah Bridge (1958), Singapore (1960) and China Town (1962), with eyes narrowed, U-shaped moustache, the works.

Something’s gotta give. Subsequently, he segued into the role of an empathetic patriarch, topped by Dulhan Wahi Jo Piya Man Bhaye (1977), in which he portrayed a bed-ridden grand-daddy who cares a fig for societal codes, actually rah-rahing an Eliza Doolittle-like flower vendor as the bride for his playboy of a grandson.

Throughout his career span of over five decades and 430 films, there was no hamming. He blended into unbelievable scenes believably.

If you expect disclosure of sibling rivalry from the book, between the three of the four Puri brothers who took to acting, forget it.

Facilitated to a degree into the Bollywood system by their uncle K.L. Saigal, Chaman and Madan Puri found their toe-holds as actors.

Today, Chaman is barely remembered, allied essentially with sidebar characters oozing piety.

By contrast, younger brother Madan who skittered through leading roles in vain, gravitated towards villainy. Like it or not, it’s only a stray few nostalgiaphiles who will concede that he became as much of a fixture in the movies as a carbon lamp is to a projector.

Younger brother Amrish Puri followed another route altogether, kicking off with experimental theatre, moving along off-the-beaten-track with Shyam Benegal and Govind Nihalani. And then bingo! He found his niche as the menacing villain, emblemised by the legendary Mogambo of Mr India (1987) and the monstrous Molaram of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). The three brothers did have a faint physical resemblance. Their acting styles, however, suggested that they thought, emoted and behaved on disparate tracks.

Amrish Puri could be convivial, jokey but also ice-slab cold as I was to find out while travelling with him to the English countryside from London after a celebratory screening of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995). Silence prevailed for two hours which seemed like 200. At the end of the ride, he asked abruptly, “You people at Filmfare even gave Farida Jalal the Best Supporting Actress for DDLJ. Why was I ignored ” After getting that off his chest, he said, “Okay, okay, come let’s have a glass of champagne.” Cheers.

To be honest, I wouldn’t associate Madan Puri with such a mood swing. I never met him, but when he wasn’t feted with a Filmfare trophy for Dulhan Wahi Jo Piya Man Bhaye, I doubt whether he would have sulked. The quintessence of character actors is that they don’t even expect awards.

From a son’s memoir, here was an actor who liked nothing more than to chill out on his drawing room’s carpet.

And if his children sneaked cigarettes or a beer behind his back, he wouldn’t chide them. He’d say, “Never do things behind my back. If you think it’s okay for you to smoke and drink at your age, do it right before my eyes.”

It goes without saying that the Puri Jrs didn’t. They respected him beyond words, even at the cinema halls when audiences would boo, hiss and heckle at his villainy, crying out loud, “Maaro saale ko!”

Overlook the often indulgent prose and gaffes like Sarika — instead of Ranjeeta — being credited as the female lead of Akhiyon Ke Jharokon Se. And My Father, The Villain resurrects a character actor who wasn’t sufficiently lionised during his own lifetime.

Khalid Mohamed is a journalist, film critic, author and film director