“Fata poster nikla Hero!”. I sometimes feel that heroes are unduly celebrated in Bollywood. If it was not for that tobacco chewing, spitfire and cruel Gabbar, what use would the dallards like Jai and Veeru have served? Hindi film villainy has changed faces over the years and has held its own despite the fact that villains always end up being on the losing side at the end of it all. If you look closely, the villains can be broadly classified into a few subcategories. Here’s a take on that. Take it as my tribute to the Bad Men you never aspire to be.
Dirty Gabbar clones: They never bathed and carried a disheveled look. As social outcasts, they found solace in the ravines of Chambal or in some deep forest. Such a choice of habitat was intelligent. Nobody cared if they didn’t take a bath. Their gang comprised of human manifestations of wild boars. I don’t know how Ramu thought of casting a Rajpal Yadav as a gang member in Jungle. But then he also cast Fardeen Khan as the lead hero. So the answer is quite obvious – he wanted to prove a point! The Gabbar clones had strange taste buds. Some of them had a weakness for cabaret dancers while some of them were repulsive even in their taste.
To quote one from China Gate - “Mere mann ko bhaya, main kutta kaat ke khaya”
Nevertheless, they epitomized all bad things that you were scolded for as a kid. They stole, stayed dirty, passed lewd remarks and stayed outdoors all day. They are the more macho villains who used terror as their weapon to rule. Largescale deforestation and desire to share a community life probably spelt the doom for this class of villains.
Gaaon ka lala clones: These were real b******s. They lent the money to our hero’s family and then asked them to settle for a compromise.
Lala Dharmprakash: “Tumhare paas aur bhi bahut kuch hai dene ko”
The poor hero had to toil hard. The fact that he had a young and generally plump sister at home added to his woes. More often than not, the poor hero was framed and sent to a jail. The Lala then made life miserable for his family back home. The hero returned later to find his personal life ruined. He just had the memories of a Rakhi song his sister used to sing to find a reason to live on. The Gaon ka lala was finally crushed and the hero once again surrendered to the law to start life afresh. These Lalas started disappearing into oblivion once nationalized banks opened centers in villages and money lending Lalas became a thing of the past.
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Safedposh Chor clones: “Saara sheher mujhe LOIN ke naam se jaanta hai”.
They smuggled and killed people while managing to stay in the limelight for all the right reasons. No one dared to imagine them to indulge in any wrong doing at least for the first 14 of the 17 reel movie.
IG to DCP Prabhakar: “Kya bakte ho Parbhaakar, Deen Dayal sheher ka izzatdaar insaan hai”
These clones enjoyed all pleasures in life. They had a bevy of revealing personal secretaries, they smoked imported cigars and went about living a flashy lifestyle that could make you mull whether it was really worth it to be righteous in conduct. These clones lost out to the underground and gadget savvy villains who aided by their firangi partners wreaked havoc in the society at large and the hero in particular.
Underground baddy clones: These clones operated sub-surface. They had a whole security system in place to track down any infiltration. As soon as any outsider entered their premises, 100W bulbs flashed and an alarm bell set off. The gadgets varied from the simple switchboards to complex electric-shock giving set-ups. Their state-of-the-art operation center was well equipped with a prison that housed the hero’s mother, love interest, long lost father, sister and all other character artists under one roof during the climax. The technology savvy villain was far removed from the do-naali toting Gabbar clones who moved on horses and lived in open air. The secret door to their hidden world was either behind a huge painting in a bungalow or some such place that one could never find out. It was only when the last scene rolled that Police was able to reach the place and arrest them all.
Mogambo Clones: The upgraded version of the tech savvy villain were their foreign counterparts who spoke impeccable Hindi and had vested interests in India. They had strange names though – Dang, Dong, Mogambo and Shakal to name a few. These clones operated from some la la land or from privately owned islands. They had their own army, a set of scientists and customs and rituals.
“Hail Mogambo” – A soldier praising his leader as part of a customary ritual.
Not just the rituals, these international epitomes of treachery dressed exotically and had a handy one liner in their repertoire.
“Dong kabhi wrong nahi hota” – Dong, when asked if his decision to let the gang of hooligans from India come and torment them in their privately owned country was correct.
With globalization came an end to their life on screen. The world shrunk, the boundaries merged and the audience came to know that there was no la la land.
Political goons: They were relegated to the backseat for most part of Indian film history. They often appeared as sidekicks who couldn’t survive till the last scene. However, for a brief period of time, they held sway in the industry. They had very social names but indulged in all possible anti-social activities.
Most of the times they had a shady past that was brought to the limelight by the once oppressed hero who sought vengeance. Again, these political goons borrowed their traits from the gaon ka lala clones in terms of debauchery. They were again the pervert lot.
Funny Villains: This brand is synonymous with the rise of Jeetendra as the “Tohfa tohfa...laaya laaya” superstar. These villains came to life owing to the wild and largely whacky sense of humor possessed by the south Indian directors. They kept goofing up but never fell short of creating trouble for our hero. The set up was mostly in a south Indian village painted as a north Indian one. The funny villains operated in pairs Father-Son or Thakur-Munim. They mouthed double meaning dialogues in abundance which can partially be acclaimed to the lack of knowledge of Hindi by the creative team that wrote dialogues. Sample one such dialogue that a villain used whenever he saw the heroine:
“Aauu Lal.e.e.tha”
Their era was short lived too. They disappeared overnight when Jeetendra’s supply of 30+ tablets was curtailed and he decided to hang up his boots.
Suave Villains: SRK changed the complexion of hindi film villainy with his K..K..Kirrran avtar. True, Shatrughan Sinha and Vinod Khanna had started the trend quite early in their career and moved to play the protagonists, SRK was already a hero when he played the bad guy. These villains possessed tremendous IQ compared to the rest of the cast. They held the upper hand in almost the whole of the film until they were finally undone. Almost the entire breed of the current lot has played the suave bad guy once for a change. You name them, you have them – SRK (Darr, Anjaam, Baazigar), Akshay (Ajnabee), Suniel Shetty (Dhadkan), Amitabh Bachchan (Aankhein, Boom, RGV Ki Aag), Ajay Devgan (Khakee) and Hrithik and John (Dhoom series). The current trend is that if you haven’t played the bad guy once, you are not happening.
While at this I purposely left out the outright winners who appear in the B grade money churners made by Kanti Shah and Mithun Da. They deserve a special mention. Although times have changed in the hindi film industry, these guys were never affected by the mutations that hindi film villainy went through. Pick up any such film and they would be as interesting. The plots of these films has been Kubrickesque. You have to understand the undercurrent of the whole premise. Sadly, one life time is not enough for that! The story revolves around a village where these wicked souls rule the roost. The Pujari, The Thakur, The Politician and The Police Wala all meet at Thakur’s haveli every night plan out their next deadly move. By the twist of fate the hero also becomes involved. The goons either lay their hands on the heroine or the hero’s sister. Now starts the roller coaster ride. Either the victim or the hero (these are the two variations) turns into a bandit to avenge the wrong doing. One by one, the villains are trapped and then sent packing.
“Aye kafanchor neta, pujari ke baad ab tera number hai..fir mera..wo humein nahi chhodega”
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