The fine line between love and hate

Today, you can have a Shah Rukh Khan who can still have the masses on his side with a film like Baazigar. Here he played a hero who dared to scheme, plot and kill — even the innocent Shilpa Shetty who loves him — to accomplish his revenge-mission. So what if he loses his real love, Kajol, in the bargain.

He followed his journey into the dark with Darr, where he was prepared to kill Sunny Deol to get to Juhi Chawla. The same fan following cheered him on in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, when he refuses to elope with Kajol without parental approval.

Similarly, when Nana Patekar stepped out from his garb of `Protector of the Masses’ to harass his wife, Manisha Koirala, in Agnisakhi, the front benchers did not bat an eyelid. Instead, they responded with fervour at every act of terror he committed. Even underdog Naseeruddin Shah — remember Sparsh, Hero Hiralal and even Tridev — jumped the badguys bandwagon with Mohra and then Chahat, released last year, to play a man so obsessed with his sister that it bordered on the incestuous. Again, he was showered with bouquets and not brickbats. What on earth is happening? In a world gone topsy turvy it seems that Bollywood’s star supporters — the audience — have changed their mind. The hero can be bad and the villain can be good. Somewhere over the years, Hindi film fans have caught on to one act: the actor on screen is just playing a role; he isn’t what he appears to be. But that wasn’t always the case.

In the good old ’50s and ’60s, the reel life villain was modelled on real life villains. So, the first bad guys to grace the silver screen were thakurs, zamindars, money-lenders and princelings. Their favourite pastime: whip their subjects, spit venom at their tenants and go horseback scouring the countryside for beautiful village belles to sate their wayward lust. Landmark films like Mother India and Do Bhiga Zamin immortalised this picture of villainy. Then came the founder member of the Tyranny Club — Pran. After Raj Kapoor’s Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai, it is said, that parents refused to name their sons Pran. So what if in real life Pran was said to be the most generous and kind film star in Bollywood.

After the wicked thakur came the era of the blinded-by-money smuggler. At an age when the swadeshi movement was in its second wind, what better villain than a man who undermines national integrity by flooding the country with foreign goods. Ajit immortalised that period with his, "sara shaher mujhe Loin ke naam se jaanta hai". His shopping list: sona, Mona and Robert. There were screen villains like Jeevan and Ranjeet — he has apparently raped the maximum number of women on screen — who everyone also loved to hate.

Villainy reached its zenith is the ’70s with Sholay. Gabbar Singh’s first appearance was just a shot of his boots but that was enough to send a chill down people’s spines. When Gabbar said, "Raat ko jab koi baccha rota hain uski maa kehti hain, chup ho ja warna Gabbar aa jayega", he was right. Gabbar Singh was the bogeyman for children of that decade. But at the same time, the winds of change were brewing a small revolution in the name of the Big Don, Amitabh Bachchan. He made being part of the underworld a respectable profession, even though his fall from grace was a result of circumstance, not choice. His negative-positive character paved the way for a new genre of villainy — tempered by a heavy dose of modern morality. It also paved the way for his contemporaries like Vinod Khanna to make the transition from villain (Mera Gaon Mera Desh) to hero (Mere Apne) and back again (Parvarish). A jump emulated by Anupam Kher and Amrish Puri. The best screen villains to date, Kher and Puri inspired the same terror as Kulbhushan Kharbanda’s Shakaal in Shaan. In the early ’90s, villains held the entire nation to ransom with threats of blowing up the entire world. But just as they could be Mr India’s Mogambo and Karma’s Dr Dang, they could also be good guys in films like Pardes and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.

It seems that audiences prefer their heroes hot, and the more spicy their career chart the more popular they appear to be. Now, young heroes all express a desire to play out and out bad guys what with Arbaaz Khan opting for a negative role in his first film, Daraar. His next film Shyam Ghanshyam has him prancing around trees but he’s willing to take a chance either way. Even women jumped into the fray, leaving behind the negative shades of wicked saas, souten or naatchnewalli. Kajol in Gupt is the murderess and she still walks off with star billing. So now, at the end of the century if Gabbar was to say, "Gabbar ki asli pasand", he might well be talking about his favourite charity — ageing screen villains who when they were bad were very, very bad, but when they were good, they were gone.