Pran: Volume And Depth

An authentic actor’s face is unmistakable, unforgettable. The eyes speak volumes. Every frown stands out. Every snarl registers. When the lip curls, the nostrils flare, the forehead furrows, you watch without blinking, without a moment of doubt that the emotion playing out before you is real. To call an actor real is anomalous  but what a real actor does is to create a sense of immediacy that distinguishes one performer from another. That is what makes a face stay in your memory and not fade out long after the reels have stopped uncoiling. That is what set Pran Krishan Sikand apart from others in his league. And the fact that for him, no role was minor and with him, no performance was hurried through, no line spoken without a hundred per cent investment, no silence glazed over with indifference. Acting a role beyond ordinary competence to a point where the minutiea of light and shade on his face, the slight emphasis on a word, even a  nod, a gesture became part of cinema’s most memorable moments, was what made Pran who he was. An unrepeatable legend.

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He began his career in the 1940s after the ambitions of becoming a photographer propitiously fell flat but maybe the photographer’s eye and instinct taught him how to capture the pulse of a moment, a character, to know what needed to stand out and what needed to be just hinted at. And most of all, focus. There are stories of him sitting in full costume in sweltering heat on a set even when his shots were not being taken because he loved what he did and what his fellow actors did which is a rare quality in this business saturated with  petty rivalries. It is impossible to sum up a cinematic journey spanning 60 years in one article but anyone who loves Hindi films has a Pran moment. I had mine for the first time when my father, a life-long Dilip Kumar fan observed how Pran saab had creamed his hero in some key moments in Madhumati (1958) and Dil Diya Dard Liya (1966). In the first, his Thakur Ugranarayan is the man responsible for the innocent Madhumati’s death and in the climax, haunted by his crime, he sits in his haveli on a rainy, stormy night while Madhumati’s quietly vengeful suitor Anand (Dilip Kumar) paints his portrait.

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There is a sense of foreboding in the air, in the way the curtains swell, noises startle, shadows approach and retreat and the Thakur knows something is afoot. He screams and questions every movement, is threatened by every sound and it is this hysteria, this almost Shakesperean agony of a guilty conscience that said my father, even put Dilip saab’s measured brilliance in the shade. In Dil Diya Dard Liya, Pran played Thakur Ramesh, the Indian version of the villainous bully in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. The one who terrorises the orphan and drives him to almost insanity. Even though, this was a vehicle tailored to show case Dilip Kumar’s genius, in one confrontational moment where Ramesh is facing an enemy who can no longer be stamped upon, Pran just walked away with the scene. And he did that often, did he not?

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He worked repeatedly with legends like Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan among others but not one of them could make him look incidental or insignificant. One of my favourite Pran moments is the one in Majboor (1974) where he plays Michael, a booze guzzling no- gooder who decides to help an innocent man accused of murder. In the climax, he has been shot fatally by the murderer (Satyen Kappu if memory serves me right) but he gets hold of the gun and sits propped against a wall, looking death in the eye while the hero goes away to get help from the police. It is a long scene and Pran saab owns every minute of it. He won’t let the villain move away from the gaze of the gun even though he is bleeding to death. He asks Parveen Babi for water, for a smoke but his gaze does not waver and he makes us feel what each minute is costing him. This was not a supporting actor’s role. He was never just a supporting actor. He was a star.

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Watch his Jasjit in Don, the dark clothes, the bitter retorts, the one liners one of which was, “Main tumse utni nafrat nahin karta jitni apne bacchon se mohabbat karta hoon!” and that walk across the rope that he made believable despite the tacky special effects. No wonder, Arjun Rampal failed so convincingly to follow Pran in the remake. It never is about how good you look, is it? And always about how good you are on screen, in the skin  of a character.

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And so he was the heroic superman of Dharam Veer who rode into the sunset with countless arrows embedded in his back, the golden-hearted and yet caustic Malang Chacha in Upkaar, yet another menacing bully in Ram Aur Shyam, the unforgettable convict in Manoj Kumar’s Shaheed where a hand-shake with Bhagat Singh, transforms him. The tyrant of Halaku, the dacoit who does not want to be reformed in Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai, the villain dancing with Kishore Kumar in drag in Half Ticket, the limping evil uncle in Chetan Anand’s Heer Ranjha, the autocratic father in Bobby and Parichay and Sharaabi, the repartee loving jailor of Kaalia, the tragic immigrant of Des Pardes, the villain of  countless romances in the 60s and so on and on. And not one performance was like any other.

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My favourite Pran moment is the one in Zanjeer.

 “Iss ilake mein naye aaye ho saheb?” he says, tossing his hennaed hair, his surma lined eyes blazing and really, what else is left to say?

Except that no one could have said that line like him or remained unforgettable in a film that made Amitabh Bachchan, a force to reckon with. Without Sher Khan, there would have been no Inspector Vijay. And without Pran, there would have been no Sher Khan.

 And so I remember him twirling on one leg, in that swirling pathan suit, waving the kerchiefs to the tune of, “Gar Khuda Mujhse Kahe Kuch Maang Aye Bande Mere, Main Ye Maangu, Mehfilon Ke Daur Yunhi Chalte Rahein, Hum Pyala, Hum Niwala, Humsafar Hamraz Ho, Ta Qayamat Jo Chiragon Ki Tarah Jalte Rahein.”   

So long Pran saab and may your light burn even brighter where you are right now. And may the celebration of your life continue in the ever after.