Amrish Puri: ‘The complete man’

On June 22, 2019, Google put up a doodle on Amrish Puri on his 87th birth anniversary. “Mogambo khush hua,” he would have thundered, had he been alive. Amrish Puri overcame many setbacks because he was willing to try an try again. Quite apt, for an actor who at 21 wanted to be the film lead, failed his initial screen tests and was rejected by every producer. He lived to fight another day and what a fight he had in him!

Initial setbacks over, theatre beckoned. First at Prithvi Theatre where he was part of many plays by playwrights like Satyadev Dubey, Girish Karnad. His film debut was at 39. That was the 1970s, the halcyon days of parallel cinema, and the actor got ample opportunity in Nishant, Manthan, Bhumika, Kalyug, Mandi, Arth Satya, Party and many more films.

His success in avant-garde cinema was instant, though the same could not be said about mainstream cinema. “Those weren’t easy years… recognition was hard to come by and I had a family to support. I took on every villain’s role that came my way,” he would state later.

Shekhar Kapur’s Mr India helped him attain the height of ‘villainy’. Mogambo was diabolic yet endearing and children loved him! He made it his own by lending him his persona, his inimitable charm and liveliness. Amjad Khan’s maverick Gabbar had found competition. Not since Sholay’s Gabbar Singh had villainy acquired such a swaggering, contemporary and quirky aura. Along came success, at last, that too in the form of a Steven Spielberg film. “Amrish is my favourite villain… the best the world has ever produced and ever will!” said the celebrated auteur, who persisted till Puri said yes to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. And the kind of fear he struck in the hearts of parents. “At my birthday parties, my friends would hear their parents say, “Amrish Puri ke ghar nahi jaana,’” laughs Vardhan Puri, his grandson. His ‘reign of terror’ matched only that of another stalwart, Pran. A story goes that a whole generation in Punjab stopped naming their sons Pran. Such was the impact of his evil deeds! Vardhan and his cousins would sit on the lap of the same ‘megalomaniac terrorist’ and enjoy casual conversations. “Grandpa would lie in bed and wrestle with us. He loved to watch National Geographic, Animal Planet… his favourite movie, Shawshank Redemption with us. Our granddad fit the bill of a ‘complete man’ to the tee,” he fondly remembers. “Aditya Chopra gave him the greatest narration of his life, for Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge(DDLJ). He designed his costumes himself, created the characters’ voice, their walk. At 70, he would come back late from shoots and rehearse his lines, such was his commitment” he adds with pride. As his Chaudhary Baldev Singh says in DDLJ, “Ja jee le apni zindagi,” what an exemplary life he lived!