PVENU ~ Musical melodies! - Page 10

Pran Krishan Sikand was born on 12 February 1920 in kotgarh old Delhi. His father, Kewal Krishan Sikand, was a civil engineer and a Government civil contractor, his mother was Rameshwari. He was academically gifted, especially in mathematics. Since his father had a transferable job, he studied in various places, including Dehradun, Kapurthala, Meerut and Unnao (Uttar Pradesh), finally completing his matriculation from Raza High School, in Rampur. Thereafter, he joined A. Das & Co., Delhi as an apprentice as he wanted to become a professional photographer. This job took him first to Simla, where he played Sita to Madan Puri's Ram in the local staging of "Ramlila".

A chance meeting with the writer, Wali Mohammad Wali, who worked for Dalsukh Pancholi, at a shop in Hira Mandi, Lahore, led to Pran winning his first role as a villain in Dalsukh Pancholi's Punjabi film Yamla Jat (1940), a big hit in that year. This was followed by Chaudhary and Khajanchi. Soon he established a name for himself as a villain in the Lahore film industry. Later, Pancholi casted him in Khandaan (1942), which was the first Hindi movie in which Pran became a hero, opposite Noor Jehan, who had earlier acted with him as a child artist.

Pran had acted in 22 films as a villain before his career experienced a brief pause, due to the partition in 1947. He left Lahore and arrived in Bombay on 14 August 1947. Pran was regularly offered the role of the main villain or negative character in the films with Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand and Raj Kapoor as the lead hero in the 1950s and 60s. Pran's performance as the negative character was very much appreciated in Dilip Kumar starrers like Azaad, Madhumati, Devdas, Dil Diya Dard Liya, Ram Aur Shyam and Aadmi and films with Dev Anand as the lead man like Ziddi (1948), Munimji (1955), Amar Deep (1958) etc. and with Raj Kapoor in Aah, Chori Chori, Chhalia, Jis Desh Men Ganga Behti Hai, Dil Hi Toh Hai.

Pran had started accepting more of versatile roles since the late 1960s; he occasionally accepted the role of a bad man in the 70s, 80s and 90s in films like Kab? Kyoon? Aur Kahan?, Gaddar, Andhaa Kanoon (1983), Duniya (1984), Hoshiyar, Dharm Adhikari and Azaad Desh Ke Ghulam. Director Prakash Mehra always casted Pran in most of his directorial ventures in his career like in Ek Kunwari Ek Kunwara, Zanjeer, Aan Baan, Khalifa, Jwalamukhi, Sharaabi, Jaadugar. Pran was a hot favourite with Manmohan Desai, having directed Pran regularly in his directorial ventures like Chhalia, Bluff Master, Dharam Veer, Naseeb, Amar Akbar Anthony. Subhash Ghai casted him in Vishwanath, Karz and Krodhi.

The legendary "Villain of the Millennium" has had a marathon six-decade career in Hindi cinema .So effective was his acting that it said that people stopped naming their children 'Pran' because of his villain roles, while the industry had started calling him 'Pran Sahab'. His favourite line "Barkhurdaar" became immensely popular.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari presented the Dadasaheb Phalke award to Indian cinema's "black gold" Pran at his residence in Mumbai