The Greatest villain that Hindi films could not have…though one is not complaining about what one got instead. Sharad Raj explores Amitabh Bachchan’s morally complex roles that redefined heroism and villainy in mainstream Hindi cinema.

Amitabh Bachchan’s cinematic journey is filled with morally ambiguous characters, anti-heroes, and near-villains that challenged Hindi cinema’s conventional hero. From Parwana to Sarkar, Sharad Raj revisits the superstar’s darker roles and their lasting cultural impact. 

Amitabh Bachchan: the superstar of the last millennium, who according to Randhir Kapoor occupied all positions from number 1-10, and whose near fatal accident brought the entire country to a standstill, including myself would also have made a very successful and menacing villain. If one was to chart the career graph of Amitabh, one will realize he has played the bad guy or a morally ambiguous character in not only some of the best and most popular films of his time but even in early films that were not very successful but laid the foundation of an illustrious career.

It starts with Jyoti Swaroop’s Parwana in 1971, where he kills the father (Om Prakash) of the woman he loves (Yogita Bali)! It may have been a desperate choice since a whole lot of films as the leading man were not successful at the box office, so maybe he tried to play the villain. This is an iconic film of his career to the extent that Sriram Raghavan pays homage to Parwana in his film Johnny Gaddar (2007). This was followed by C.V. Sridhar’s Gehri Chaal in 1972 where he is the son of a bank manager and helps a gang of thieves to rob the bank where his father worked.

By no means the virtuous “hero”

By no means the virtuous “hero” Hindi films were so used to and still are. And then came Rajshri Production’s Saudagar in 1973, where Amitabh plays once again an out and out villain. A village jaggery trader, Moti (Amitabh Bachchan) falls for Phool Bano (Padma Khanna) but does not have enough money for the “Meher”. His jaggery is made by a widow Majubee (Nutan), Moti proposes marriage to her so that he can save the money he pays to Majubee for making jaggery and collect money for “Meher”. Moti divorces Majubee once he has the money for Phool Bano’s “Meher” but Phool Bano does not know how to make jaggery! Amitabh’s character is that of a conniving man with an ulterior motive. He was the protagonist in all three films Parwana, Gehri Chaal and Saudagar despite being the bad guy. Bachchan had done this decades before Shah Rukh Khan made it fashionable in Baazigar and Darr.

Then of course came the epitome of being the “Angry Young Man”, Deewar (1975) where he was not a baddie but an anti-hero who chooses the path of crime as opposed to an affable, lovable, upright lover boy image of Rajesh Khanna. Even in Hrishikesh Mukherjee films like Abhimaan (1973), where he is a husband jealous of his wife’s (Jaya Bachchan) success and destroys his marriage. In Hrishida’s Namak Haram (1973) he is a man confused between Socialist values of his friend (Rajesh Khanna) and the Capitalist demands of his father’s business. Just for the sake of his bruised ego Amitabh loses his friend and becomes blatantly anti-working class. In Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Mili (1975) once again Amitabh’s character is that of a man from a so-called “disgraced” background who is a drunkard sociopath.

Let us look at Yash Chopra’s Trishul (1978) once again he is a vengeful illegitimate son who leaves no stone unturned to take revenge from his father and goes a bit too far if one was to compare it with the act of his father (Sanjeev Kumar) ditching his mother (Waheeda Rehman). We all know of Don (1978), Silsila (1981), Shakti (1982), Satte Pe Satta (1981), Agneepath (1989) etc. where either he is in a double role of one good and one bad guy or is morally questionable. Once again in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Jurmana (1978) he is the rich guy who schemes to get a simple girl (Rakhee) to his “bedroom”.

Amongst his later films Amitabh

Amongst his later films Amitabh is a regressive patriarch in Aditya Chopra’s Mohabbatein (2000). In Ram Gopal Varma’s Nishabdh (2006) he is sexually attracted to his daughter’s friend (Jiah Khan) and gets involved with her! While in Ramu’s Sarkar (2005) he is lethal as a Brandoesque mafia lord and even in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Black (2005) he is an ill-tempered teacher who finally kisses his deafblind student! Blasphemous but true.

He would undoubtedly have made a great villain. Amitabh was keen to play Gabbar in Sholay as we all know but later made a mighty mess of it in Ram Gopal Varma’s abdominal readaptation of Sholay. For all those who labelled Amitabh Bachchan as man who never crossed the line and took risks need to reassess him, albeit within the mainstream paradigm.

Looking Back, History Revisited, Then And Now, Memory And Meaning, Archival Stories, Past In Perspective, Revisiting Moments, Cultural History, Lessons From The Past,