Singing hero to iconic stylish villain; that’s ‘Lion’ AJIT!

By Chaitanya Padukone

Loyal fans of legendary star-villain Ajit (real name Hamid Ali Khan) will be observing (January 27, 2022) his birth centenary this year. Although Ajit-saab passed away in 1998 (24 years ago) he will always live in the hearts and fond memories of retro-movie watchers and will be eternally etched in Bollywood cinema history.

As the super-cool (with that ‘sang froid’ and poker-faced-look) villain, the tall, handsome Ajit would grab audience-attention with his stylized modulated dialogue delivery (bass baritone-nasal-drawl), his smart costumes and mannerisms and of course his menacing swag. Which allowed him very often to steal the show from the debonair lead-hero. Besides his amazing acting skills, Ajit’s famous punch-lines like “Smart-Boy”, “Lily, Don’t Be Silly” and of course the iconic phrases like ‘Monaa Darling……” and ‘Saara Shehar Mujhe ‘Loin’ (Lion) Ke Naam Sey Jaanta Hai’.

Not many are aware that the tall, handsome Ajit began his acting career as a ‘romantic hero’ in various movies and has several chartbuster evergreen film songs picturised on him. In fact Ajit has even acted in landmark classic movies such as ‘Mughal-e-Azam’ and ‘Naya Daur’  The suave Ajit has romanced on-screen top star-heroines like B.Saroja Devi, Shakila,  Meena Kumari, Suraiya, and even Madhubala.

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Realising that he was not able to make his impactful mega-mark as a positive star-hero, Ajit decided to take up nasty villain roles which was suggested by his buddy-actor Rajendra Kumar. Destiny scripted his debut as a villain (‘Prince Pratap Singh’) with jubilee-musical super-hit costume royalty drama movie ‘Suraj’ (1966) in which Rajendra Kumar and Vyjayanthimala played the romantic leads. A formidable, charismatic star-villain was born. With his new-found popularity as the dreaded evil antagonist, there was no looking back for Ajit.

Then came memorable principal negative roles for Ajit in mega-hit movies like ‘Kaalicharan’, ‘Zanjeer’, ‘Yaadon Ki Baaraat’, ‘Paraya Dhan’ (as a dangerous dacoit), ‘Jeevan Mrityu’, ‘Prince’ and so many more. Having acted in over 200 plus Hindi movies benevolent  Ajit was also fond of playing cards and watching or playing football matches ( he used to be a ‘football-champ’ during his youth) in his free time. Ideally, the Central Government should (if possible) release a special postage stamp in 2022, to commemorate legendary Ajit’s Centenary Year. During his lifetime, in the late’80s, when I once personally met modest Ajit-saab, he shared with me, “Negative roles have a very high recall-value. Behind all those gaaliyan (abuses) for my wicked deeds on-screen, indirectly there is this silent taaliyan (ovation) from the audiences”.

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Interestingly, Ajit’s talented actor son Shehzaad Khan had done a mimic quirky yet brilliant take-off on his illustrious father in this unique romantic comedy ‘Andaz Apna Apna’ (1994) directed by Raj Kumar Santoshi.

FIVE (05) evergreen film-songs picturised on romantic-hero AJIT:

i) Dekho Mausam Kya Bahar Hai (Opera House 1961); ii) Chaman Ke Phool Tujhko (Shikari-1963);  iii) Dil Ko Laakh Sambhala Jee (Guest House-1959); iv) Muft Huey Badnaam (Baraat-1960); v) Main Khushnaseeb Hoon (Tower House-1962). And of course the soul-stirring background song ‘Kitna Badal Gayaa Insaan’ (Nastik-1954)

(The writer Chaitanya Padukone is an eminent, senior film journalist-columnist and author of memoirs book R D BurMania)