PERSONALITY
Heroic villain
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An informative and entertaining biography of a daredevil Pathan.
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WHEN Indira Gandhi declared Emergency on June 25, 1975, suspending fundamental rights and imposing censorship on the press, the celebrities who spoke up publicly against these draconian measures could be counted on the fingers of the right hand, or the left hand, depending on their ideological leanings. One of them was an outright villain. His name was Pran Kishen Sikand and he was, at that time, the most famous "bad man" of Indian cinema.
Courageous man
In real life, he was a perfect gentleman and a man of enormous integrity and courage. He wrote an article in Screen voicing his anger and protest at the excesses of the Emergency. The Information and Broadcasting Minister at that time was the notorious Vidya Charan Shukla, and Pran could easily have been arrested on his orders. In fact, almost the entire opposition in Parliament was in jail.
Yet Pran was articulate about his anger and even started a correspondence with George Fernandes, then a trade union leader on the run, urging him to keep up the good work. Not one of the heroes of Hindi cinema had raw courage in real life like this villain!
The story of this daredevil Pathan begins in Lahore, and film journalist Bunny Reuben has written a most informative and entertaining biography. We know a lot about the protagonists of Hindi cinema, much too much at times, but very little about the villains. The credit titles list him after the hero, the heroine, the supporting actors; the name appears when the titles end with "... and Pran". Hence the title of the book, ... And Pran, A Biography.
The best part of the book is the story of his chance encounter with cinema and his destiny-assisted career from Lahore to Bombay. In those days, Lahore was an important centre of film production and Dalsukh M. Pancholi's huge studios, Pancholi Art Studios, was very famous. Pran was an assistant to a photographer at that time and considered movies were infra dig. They were beneath him. He was already earning Rs. 200 a month at the photo shop. When an inebriated writer named Wali Mohammad Wali met him at a paan shop and offered him a role, he thought it was a joke. However, the next week he bumped into Wali at a movie theatre, the man was stone cold sober, and offered him the same job.
The film was in Punjabi and was called "Yamla Jat" (1940). After working in about 20 more films, a lot of them successful, political disaster, in the shape of partition, ripped the sub-continent apart and Pran found himself afloat in Bombay, with a wife, a child and no work. This is the most entertaining part of Reuben's biography and is almost like a heritage tour of Bombay hotels in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Pran was a man known for his distinctive style. When he lived in Lahore, he wore the latest suits and drove the finest tongas. He always wanted the best. So arriving in Bombay as a refugee, he checked himself and his wife and young son into the Taj Mahal Hotel; nothing less would do. After all, he was a famous actor from Lahore! At Rs. 55 a day, it cost a small fortune but Pran stayed there until his money ran out. Then it was the Strand Hotel, down the road from the Taj, near the Radio Club, for less than Rs. 25 a month and then Fredricks Hotel and then Delamar on Marine Drive. They had to pay their bills at the end of each week. One day he looked at his wife, she handed him her gold bangles, he refused, then accepted.
Enjoyable read
Stories and anecdotes make ... And Pran an enjoyable read. Even if you are not a film buff or a Pran fan, the anecdotes in the book reflect the quality of life in Bombay in those days. Because of the longevity of Pran's career as villian — almost half a century — the biography spans the modern history of Hindi cinema.
Pran worked extensively with the triumvirate — Dev Anand, Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar — and was a good and loyal friend to all three. We see their personalities and characters vividly etched through his eyes, with humour, irony and entirely without the need to charm or flatter. In dignity, reputation and honour Pran was their equal, and pulled their legs and their egos frequently.
But the point that comes through most forcefully in Reuben's book, the lesson of life in the fast lane of glamour and celebrity status, is that a stable family life is essential to a successful career in a high profile profession. Without the constant, supportive and stabilising influence of his wife, Shukla Sikand, Pran would not be half the actor he was. She is clearly the better half of his villainy!
... And Pran, A Biography; Bunny Reuben, Harper Collins, Rs. 500.
AJIT DUARA
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