Sprint of the Fox and Other Stories*

Q. What does a fox whose days are numbered do? A. It runs towards the city.
Q. What does one do to a rabid dog? A. One pumps a bullet into it.

One learns all these things by watching commercial movies churned out by the Indian film industry at Bombay (Mumbai), popularly known as Bollywood. In spite of its wanton plagiarism of Foreign - mainly Hollywood - movies, Bollywood has -over the years- produced very many highly talented and excellent actors. Interestingly, most of these actors acted/act as villain, because perhaps villainry is the only part in bollyowood that needs acting capability, which is in stark contrast to the main character of a movie, known as Hero, the only qualification for which seems to be having big biceps/muscles.

And among the most fearsome of the Bollywood villains, he was the best, the Boss of all Bosses. This great actor had come to be a hero way back in 1954, only to be turned down because of his "ugly" look and "bad" voice. And in that instance, divine justice was done; because then he returned to drama/theatre to work for the next 20 years or so with some of the best and legendary theatre personalities such as Satyadev Dubey. He was brought to parallel cinema by Shyam Benegal, and he acted in a series of art/parralel movies in the seventies. Later he returned to Bollywood to terrify the heroes and the audiences alike by his screen presence and his booming voice. He gave soul to villainry in Bollywood, and watching Hindi movies was never before so much fun.Of course, he had to act in all those absurd movies, and play all those exaggerated and totally unrealistic roles, and yet he somehow made them look credible. And that's where his greatness as an actor lies.

But that does not mean that he only knew how to act a villain. Contracy to that, he also did equal justice to roles in which he played normal human beings.

And then the end came.

*in Memory of Amrish Puri (1932-2005)