India’s Most Wanted

He spooked the living daylights out of leading ladies for decades and almost brought the heroes to their knees before being customarily vanquished. He fine-tuned the enemy of the people act to such perfection, that people desisted from naming their off springs after him for a long time. For six decades and for over 400 films he remained India’s most 'wanted', even when his on screen characters stopped being on the wrong side of the law.

Pran was a star actor-a powerhouse performer-an artist who crossed generations and touched the borders of innumerable lives.

If the mass wanted to watch him in over 400 plus screen appearances, then he must have been doing something right and was lucky at the same time. But he also risked getting stereotyped (which he was to an extent) – it is not possible to not to recycle one’s tricks, if one is called upon to use them again and again. Pran, or Pransaheb as the Indian film industry rightly addresses him, escaped the contempt of familiarity due to his protean gifts. He would imbue the stock characters that he played with a tic, a mannerism, or a demeanor that would make them connect with the timeless.

Raka, the bandit from Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai was one such character. The menacing robber was afraid of the gallows and would occasionally loosen his collar as if it was getting too tight for him. The seemingly unconscious act, enacted with a naturalness that came from art and more of it - brings out the fact that though criminals may appear otherwise, they are mortally afraid of the punishment that they keep eluding.

Thakur Ramesh from Dil Diya Dard Liya, an Indianized adaptation of the dark classic Wuthering Heights is another example. In a scene or two, Pran conveyed the descent of a character into one’s personal hell with the felicity of a Japanese master of the haiku. The movie did not turn out well, but Pran’s presence in it is beyond reproach.

When you watch Kashmir Ki Kali, you realize how Pran had been trying combinations of several shades in his character portrayals for a long time so that his black acts do not become monotonous. A negative character may be a buffoon as well; there is no hard and fast rule that a villain has to be ramrod straight.

What could have been one of his best role ever because all the salient points of the character seem to be tailor-made for Pran’s on screen persona was Faria from The Count of Monte Cristo. The sage-like convict from the Dumas bestseller whose middle name was never-say-die, and who taught the ingenuous sailor Edmond Dantes the ways of the world, and finally transformed him to the Count of Monte Cristo so that he could go back to society and take his revenge had Pran written all over him.

For reasons unknown, the Indian film industry shied away from adapting Dumas, though the plot of his The Corsican Brothers, have been tweaked into several Indian blockbusters like Ram aur Shyam, Seeta Aur Geeta, Chalbaaz, Ghazab, Kishen Kanhaiya, etc.

Whether he played a jailor (Kaalia) or a crippled war veteran (Upkaar), a noble savage (Dharam Veer) or a tyrannical feudal lord (Madhumati) – Pran ensured that India would want to get spellbound by his magic once more.

He remains one of India’s most wanted forever.