When Pran had to sell his wife’s jewellery to survive after working in 20 films: ‘Bahut dhakke khane pade’
There was a time in the Hindi film industry when actors were slotted in the categories of heroes and villains and while there were many heroes who were fighting for the top spot, there were only a handful of villains who were terrorising the protagonists across many movies. And one of the most popular villains of the time, in fact of all time, was Pran. Such was the image of the actor that people wouldn’t even name their kids Pran for the fear that they would also turn out to be evil like the characters he played on-screen.
Pran was the go-to villain in the movies for over two decades, staring from the 1950s but when he initially moved to Mumbai (then Bombay), he had to struggle a lot despite being a fairly famous actor. In a chat with Dr Rajiv Vijayakar for Rediff, Pran had once spoken about the hardships he had to endure during his early days. “After more than 20 films there, I thought Hindi films would welcome me, but I was wrong. Yahan toh bahut dhakke khaane pade. I had no work here for more than six months. I had to sell some of my wife’s jewellery to settle the bills,” he said.
Pran first made his debut in a 1940 film called Yamla Jat in Lahore. After working in many hit films, he moved to Indore, and then Bombay, during the Partition in August 1947. He had shared that when the riots began in Lahore, he sent his family to Indore and followed them shortly after. “When the riots began in Lahore in 1947, I packed off my wife and one-year-old child with my sister-in-law to Indore. My son’s first birthday was on August 11, 1947, and my wife said I must come to Indore or she would not celebrate it. That’s how I reached Indore on August 10. The next day, All India Radio announced that an inter-communal massacre had begun in Lahore. Since I could not go back, we came to Bombay. My family and I reached here on the eve of Independence, August 14, 1947,” he shared.
The first film that Pran signed in Mumbai was Bombay Talkies’ 1948 film Ziddi. Subsequently, he worked in Grihasti, Apradhi, Putli and all of them proved to be big hits. “After I signed AVM’s first Hindi film, Bahar, things picked up. Sohrab Modi gave me Sheesh Mahal and, since most of my films proved hits, my demand kept rising,” he said.
Pran passed away in 2013 at the age of 93. He was honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award a few months before his passing and because his health did not allow him to attend the ceremony, the award was presented to him at his residence.
