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Ever a class act
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Amrish Puri's autobiography is a graphic account of his struggle to the top
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Amrish Puri's big build and booming baritone worked in his favour as villain
PHOTO: BHAGYA PRAKASH K.
AMRISH UNVEILED Girish Karnad launching The Act of Life, flanked by Prema Bhaktavatsala (left) and co-author Jyoti Sabharwal.
He began his acting career with some of the most remembered roles on the Hindi stage, though the highest remuneration he ever got during those days was a "side car" for his scooter. When he was in his 40s, he started his arduous climb up right from the bottom rung in the Bombay film industry, sometimes playing insignificant bit roles. When the New Wave hit Indian cinema, he played roles such as the unforgettable feudal lord in Nishant or the fakir in Mandi. And finally, he became the uncrowned king of villainy in Bollywood and showed a few flashes of evil in Hollywood too. A man no less than Steven Spielberg often told him: "You are the real devil!"
Amrish Puri may have had his share of disappointments — of not being able to become a hero in an industry obsessed with stereotypical good looks, for instance. But one can imagine the late actor sitting on a glittering throne up there and looking back at his illustrious career with a contented smile: "Mogambo khush hua!"
The man, his times
Puri's autobiography, The Act of Life (Stellar, Rs. 595), co-authored by Jyoti Sabharwal, chronicles this fascinating journey. The book, running into 400-odd pages, is written with the diligence and discipline of a self-made man who achieved everything in life through hard work. Without wasting too much energy on style and flourish (and retaining all the rough edges of his the Punjabi-English), the book strives to document a life "as it happened" in chronological order, in rich detail, supplemented with some rare photographs.
In fact, the book turns out to be as interesting for all the insights it offers about his contemporaries — his brother Madan Puri, cousin Kundan Lal Saigal and many more big names in film and theatre — and times in which they lived.
Releasing the book at the Oxford Bookstore in Leela Galleria last week, Girish Karnad called it one of those rare autobiographies written by a craftsman that showed "no trace if self-indulgence". Calling Puri one of his "two real friends in the film industry" (the other being Shankar Nag), the playwright talked warmly about his long association with Puri from his days in theatre.
Incidentally, it was Puri's roles in two of Karnad's plays — Hayavadana and Yayati, directed by his mentor Satyadev Dubey in Hindi — that won him great respect on stage. And Puri's big break in films came with him playing the fiery village headman Chandre Gowda in Karnad's Kannada film Kaadu, based on a novella by Srikrishna Aladahalli.
Acknowledging this, Puri writes in the book: "Kaadu was a film that was destined to change my life, my career, and my social status. And Girish made the most significant contribution to putting the stamp of an outright villain on my persona."
Recalling his experiences during the shooting of Kaadu, Karnad described how Puri would labour over his Kannada dialogues but would never get them right before the camera. Finally Karnad had to cut the dialogues to the minimum. "And he did a terrific job of his silences!"
Karnad also spoke of Puri's wonderful ability to use his body or "work against his body" as the role demanded. His big build and booming baritone worked in his favour as villain. But he was also capable of working against it and successfully when he had to play softer roles. "He could efface himself so wonderfully. He was visible only when he deliberately projected himself." Writing about his experiences while shooting Bhumika, Puri says he went through 10 sessions of facials to give himself a "soft look"!
Speaking about The Act of Life and her experiences with Puri as his female lead in Kaadu, Prema Bhaktavatsala said she could see in him nothing of the Karnataka Gowda he was to play when she was first introduced to him. But she could barely recognise him on the sets. From a brawny Punjabi, he had transformed into a typical Gowda in patapati shorts and a beedi in the mouth!
She also recalled how when she was hesitating to touch him in one of the scenes where she was to rub oil in his back, he had turned around witheringly and told her in his imposing voice: "I am not an untouchable."
The greatest thing about Puri's career was, perhaps, that he was not an "untouchable" anywhere. He straddled the worlds of theatre, parallel cinema and commercial cinema like few others could, and he fought every inch of the way to the top in all these fields.
Amrish Puri in his own words
About his "hard looks": "This is a comparative terminology. It is how the viewer perceives you. Take Arnold Schwarzenegger, for instance. I think he has the hardest face on earth, yet he has been a very successful hero. The face takes its shape, contour, and the approval of people according to what you do. A successful face, whether handsome or not, would be watched by everyone. I would continue as long as I can take it as my test."
About theatre: "Whenever I do theatre, I know that I'd get only so much time to be able to perform well. That's why theatre has been so wonderful. We focus on performance, and the outcome of the character that I achieve would only happen if I get the right reaction from the other actor. If he does not give me the feedback, I cannot talk back. I would hit the ball with my racquet only when the ball comes from the other side. You cannot hit in a vacuum. That is why we call it play."
BAGESHREE S.
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