My weekly column for Yahoo! Movies, first published here.
April 24 was the birthday of Mac Mohan –
one of the most recognised faces in Bollywood. With his distinctive
white-streaked hair and beard, he was the quintessential villain’s henchman –
never shying away from ordering a hit or helpfully passing on his boss’
message.
Today’s column looks at the life, times
and trivia of ‘Mac’.
Mac Mohan was his screen name, arrived at
by cleverly juxtaposing the first syllables of his name and surname – Mohan
Makhijani.
He came to Bombay to become a cricketer
but ended up in the movie industry instead. He had several filmi connections as
he was Sunil Dutt’s classmate in Lucknow and Raveena Tandon’s maternal uncle.
In fact, the actress was very fond of ‘Mohan mama’ and thought him to be a hero
in real life. There was a controversy around the National Awards of 2001 when
Raveena won the Best Actress prize for Daman while Mac Mohan was a member of
the jury (and later accused of nepotism).
He made his film debut way back in 1964
with a part in Chetan Anand’s war drama – Haqeeqat – set in the backdrop of the
Sino-Indian war.
He was also seen soon afterwards in Joy
Mukherjee starrer, Aao Pyar Karein, where he danced to a song displaying female
moves as part of a prank with his friends.
The song can be seen here and
acknowledgments are due to Jai
Arjun Singh who discovered Mac and Sanjeev Kumar as the ‘hero’s friends’ in
the song.
His most iconic role was – of course,
obviously, definitely, TOTALLY – in Sholay.
He gained legendary fame and his name in
Sholay – Sambha – became a household word, thanks to a superb conversation with
Gabbar Singh that led to his speaking just three words in the entire film. The
device of Gabbar getting a sidekick to praise was explained by Javed Akhtar as
an obvious one since megalomaniacs like others singing their praise. To this
end, Sambha said “Pooray pachaas hazaar”, the reward on Gabbar’s head and made
history.
Incidentally, the shooting of Sholay had
him speaking in several scenes but all of them got edited out. In fact, Mac Mohan
was very disappointed he saw the rushes and requested director Ramesh Sippy to
edit even that one scene out.
As it turned out, he started getting
recognised on streets as Sambha and was mobbed by audiences when he went to see
the film in the theatre!
Silly Aside: Rekha played an outrageously
dressed vamp in Madam X. The fourteen people who saw that abomination of a film
would remember (or not) that Mac Mohan played her chief henchman and his name
was Sambha!
Mac Mohan made his career out of playing the
villain’s henchman in countless (actually, 218) Hindi films.
In Karz, he was Sir Juda’s (Premnath)
interpreter since the main villain did not speak and communicated only by
clinking fingers on glasses.
In Satte Pe Satta, he played a henchman
who tried to roll a boulder on an heiress but failed due to the efforts of the
brothers.
In Don, he was part of the smugglers’ gang
wearing natty clothes and playing cards.
He did the occasional ‘good’ role as well.
For example in The Burning Train, he was the leader of labourers trying to make
an incline to stop the hurtling train. In fact, he was shown as the passionate
leader who egged his team to complete this critical task taking instructions
from Vinod Mehra (through a megaphone). In fact, the final instruction – which
precipitated the climax – identified him by name – “Mac, Super Express ko
incline pe daal do”.
His name was so popular that in an
exceptionally large number of films, his characters were also called Mac. This
was in line with the tradition created by iconic villains like Ranjeet and Prem
Chopra, whose characters were often named after their real names.
In 31 out of his 218 movies, Mac was Mac!
For the mathematically inclined, that is a whopping 14% of the total output.
For the trivially inclined, he was Mac in three successive movies in 1993 and
called Mac Kelkar in the forgettable Jawab Hum Denge.
One of his very interesting roles came in
Kaala Patthar, where he played Rana the card shark.
He was perennially ripping off fellow
miners in the colony in card games, which he seemed incapable of losing. He met
his match when Shatrughan Sinha challenged him to a game of teen patti and
ended up with two kings. When Mac took out his three jacks (one of which was
produced from under his sleeve), Shatru tore up his third card and announced –
“teesre badshah hum hain...”
This character had a very interesting
twist in the climax when a group of miners were stuck in the submerged mine and
used a draw of cards to decide who would get to escape using the lift first.
One of Mac’s last roles was in Zoya
Akhtar’s Luck By Chance, set in the world of strugglers in the film industry.
He played himself, as the chief guest at
the graduation ceremony of an acting class (run by Saurabh Shukla). Before
giving out the certificates, he was requested to speak. A gushing student asked
him not for a few words but for those three words that made him iconic. Mac
good-naturedly obliged by restating the reward on Gabbar’s head... to
thunderous applause.
At the end of a busy career, he deserved
it.
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