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These Guys!!
This is a Fan’s tribute to the ultimate symbols of BAD in Indian culture. I always had an admiration for the BADs, but after the recent experience of watching HouseFull 2, the fan inside me has rised again from the ashes. Before I continue, I must state here that HouseFull 2, is worthless and probably the stupidest movie ever made…well till now. It’s a tight slap on the face of common sense and human intelligence.
If you are fond of watching Hindi movies, I mean not just watching but following them, then you must heard of legends such as, Ranjeet, Amrish Puri, Prem Chopra, Jeevan, Ajit, Pran, Bob Bristo, MacMohan and many more. These were the guys who had the responsibility or the onus of carrying a movie forward, especially the hindi movies made during the early sixties and seventies. Without them there was no chutzpah in movies. They were the Yang in Ying Yang. They were the omegas in Alpha Omega. They were…….I could go on but I think I made my point.
In my childhood days, when people used to clap on a Hero’s so called SOLO entry in a movie, I used to eagerly wait for the entry of the Villain. Back then the movies were plain black and white, I mean in a more non-colour philosophical sense. The Hero was White as chalk and the Villain was plain Black as the night. There was no grey area in between them. The hero would do only good things you can possibly think of and the villain would do all the bad things you can ever imagine. There were precise list of things or set formula which were being followed in almost every movie. A hero would atleast save someone’s life, will give to charity; will take care of the old and helpless n numerous other boring things. And a villain would drink, smoke, watch mujra or cabaret, flirt with women then attempt to rape if she refuses his flirts, kidnap Hero’s family and mock death to hit from behind in the climax scene,…….. most of the time in the same order. In short, Villains had to do all the hard work.
And This Guy
Amoung all the good things the hero would do, one good thing were common in almost all the movies and it was to stop a Rape, in progress. And that’s where Ranjeet comes into picture. I could bet in those times, if there is a rape scene in a movie then the main villain would surely be Ranjeet. This fact or trivia was equally acknowledged by Sajid Khan, the director of Housefull Two. Notoriously, Ranjeet is Indian cinema’s Serial Rapist. With those half buttoned shirts, lewd behaviour and menacing horny looks, Ranjeet exuberated true BADness. I couldn’t imagine how women would have reacted, if they would see Ranjeet in real life, in those time. Probably, run away to look for her saviour. I remembered, Amrish Puri in one of his interviews revealed that children used to get afraid seeing him in person. This was the legend of these BADdies. They had to play out the scum of the earth so that the GOOD can be prevailed. I cant see any better example self-sacrifice than this. Prem Chopra is another one of those legends. I consider his dialogue from the movie ‘Bobby’, ‘Prem naam hai mera……Prem Chopra!!!’, right at the top of ‘Top Ten Best Hindi Cinema Lines’. I am pretty sure after this line became a hit, mothers would never have even thought of naming their child ‘Prem’.
Before Housefull, the only true tribute I can remember was in a TV series which used to be aired in Sony TV. It was pretty long time back; I don’t even remember its name. In it there were two family living in a same house, and the eldest son of one of the family used to pray to a Mogambo’s framed picture. In his words, he was ‘Mogambo ka Bhakt!!!’. In other small instances, MacMohan got an appearance in Zoya Akhtar’s movie Luck By Chance. Bytheway unlike Housefull, Luck By Chance was a sensible and intelligent movie.
These guys truly deserve admiration and memento from Indian people. For decades they balanced the equation in a movie. They gave the Hero a purpose in a movie. Many a times, the whole movie is based on ‘How to kill the Villain?’. The so called revenge movies, we had tonne of those. And what did they got in return…….. well nothing much. I am pretty sure their pay were pretty low than the Heroes, this is considering the fact that you cannot imagine a movie without a Villain. They carried society’s dirt by playing out the most unthinkable sinful acts in the silver screen, for what….. for our entertainment….!!!!
Most fittingly, the funniest scene in the movie Housefull 2 was at the last during closing credits, when Akshay Kumar brought Asin to meet his father Ranjeet Vasna K Pujari. To which Ranjeet responded by leering slowly while unbuttoning his shinny silk shirt, and lecherously saying, ‘Baby, Baby, Baby…!!!’. Seeing this Akshay Kumar, shouted, ‘She is your soon-to-be-daughter in law’. To this Ranjeet instantly retraces its step backward, buttoning back his shirt, saying ‘Beti, Beti, Beti….!!!’
