Indian cinema is celebrating its
centenary this year but also mourns one of its most unforgettable icons this month. For nearly 60 out of those 100 years, Pran had remained an imposing presence on theatre screens first as the villain’s villain and then as a memorable character actor. He died on July 12 in Mumbai. Unlike many of his movies that end with the end of his vile screen character, the history of cinema will continue with Pran perched atop not just his genre but also prominently in the pantheon of the film greats of all time.
Born Pran Krishen Sikand on February 12, 1920 in an affluent Punjabi household of the Galli Saudagran, Mohallah Ballimaran, Old Delhi, he moved to Lahore when his employer, the photography enterprise A Das and Company, opened its franchise there. His father Lala Keval Krishen Sikand’s engineering job-related postings took the young Pran to various parts of North India including the Rampur State where he did his matriculation. It possibly was this schooling that gave Pran a firm command over not just the Urdu language but its poetry repertoire also. He would have his script written in Urdu and occasionally had difficulty pronouncing chaste Hindi words correctly. Manoj Kumar who directed Pran in the 1967 nationalist-themed ‘Upkar’ says that he had to transliterate certain Hindi words for Pran in Urdu. But through the exposure to a variety of people and cultures during those travels with his father, perhaps Pran absorbed the diversity needed for his success as a versatile actor.
Pran’s big break came through the Dalsukh M Pancholi writer Wali Muhammad Wali who spotted the 19-year old chewing paan at a certain Ram Lubhaya’s paan shop in pre-partition Lahore. Pran stated later that both he and Wali were a bit tipsy and when the latter insisted on getting him a role in a Pancholi Studios picture, he nodded yes just to get the pestering man off his back. Pran did not show up at the studios next day, perhaps the only time he behaved unprofessionally in his film career. Perchance Wali spotted him again at a movie theatre later and scolded him with choice expletives in Punjabi. Pran eventually went to the studios but was still unsure about joining. When Pancholi virtually told him to take it or leave it, Pran caved in and the rest is history. He was cast in the Punjabi film Yamla Jatt opposite Anjana in which Madam Noor Jehan also appeared as Baby Noor Jehan. The dapper young man with the Errol Flynn-style moustache and the characteristic menacing glower when chewing paan clicked in the negative role. He would go on to browbeat the screen heroes and audiences alike. Pancholi also gave Pran his first break as a hero in Urdu/Hindi Khandan, with Madam Noor Jehan as the female lead this time. The film, written by Syed Imtiaz Ali Taj and directed by Shaukat Hussain Rizvi who later married Madam Noor Jehan, listed ‘Pran Krishna’ as the lead on its poster. But over the years the reduction simply to his first name became so distinctive that hundreds of film credits listed him only as Pran. A fan even thought that his name was ‘… And Pran’! The great Bunny Rueben thus titled his monumental biography …and Pran.
On the eve of partition, the Lahore-based actor was in Indore to celebrate his son’s birthday when communal riots broke out. He had obviously been aware of the deteriorating situation and used to carry a Rampuri chaqu (knife) on him but the magnitude of the madness was such that he could not return to Lahore. With over 20 films already under his belt, he moved to Mumbai (then Bombay) looking for a second break that, after many disappointments, finally came courtesy recommendations from his friend the actor Shyam and Saadat Hasan Manto, whom Pran had befriended in Lahore. Pran was signed up, along with two other Lahore alumni Dev Anand and Kamini Kaushal, for the Bombay Talkies’ movie Ziddi (1948). Ziddi’s story was written by Ismat Chughtai and it was directed by her husband Shahid Lateef. There was no looking back for the best bad guy that the popular Hindi cinema was to ever have. A career spanning six decades and some 400 movies pitched Pran opposite Dadamoni Ashok Kumar and the Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand and Dilip Kumar triumvirate — in nine films with each — and eventually with the other greats like Amitabh Bachchan.
While he clearly excelled at character roles in the second phase of his career starting with the memorable Malang Chacha in Upkar (1967) and culminating with Sher Khan in Zanjeer (1975), both featuring Manna Dey’s awesome song numbers, Pran took screen villainy to new heights. Pran picked up where the late KN Singh had left and turned the anti-hero into the third stem of the tripod, at par with the hero and heroine, on which the success formula of the Hindi cinema rested. The dacoit Raaka in Raj Kapoor’s Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai (1960) remains perhaps Pran’s best performance followed closely by the menacing sadist Thakur Ramesh in Dil Diya Dard Liya (1966) and the vicious Gajendra in Ram aur Shyam (1967), both opposite Dilip Kumar. Pran, who used to do his own getup, picked the look he donned as Raaka from a newspaper picture of a slain dacoit and brought it back to life with his hairdo, costume and mannerisms complete with the signature raised brow and a finger-swipe around his neck as if subconsciously loosening the hangman’s inevitable noose. Whether swashbuckling with Dilip Kumar or as the tormentor whipping the Thespian to pulp, Pran was at an astounding ease. Pran, like Dilip Kumar, never took acting lessons or performed on stage. But if there was a match for Pran’s command over voice, facial expression and body language it was Dilip Kumar, with whom he also shared his love of Urdu and its diction.
Amitabh Bachchan had written that “screen villainy is a thankless job which Pran Saab accepted and carried out with such a degree of perfection that he became the actor the entire nation loved to hate. That indeed was the measure of his extraordinary success.” In a cinematic tradition entrenched in mythology and folklore, Pran came to be seen as the ultimate antagonist. His is an ultimate success story from a photographer to the India’s highest civil award Padma Bhushan. Pran concluded his biography with the Urdu verse:
Guzray huay zamanay ka ab tazkirah hi kya/Achha guzar gaya, bohat achha guzar gaaya
But you will be fondly remembered Pran Saab, RIP!
The writer can be reached at [email protected] and he tweets @mazdaki