Hail Mogambo!

What made JK stand out was a low-brow, high-drama sequence in Shahenshah. Staring menacingly at a female dancer doing her thing — in 1988, nobody used the term ‘‘item number’’ — Puri/JK orders Black Dog whisky. A sidekick asks why he favours the brand. Here’s the answer: ‘‘Jab bhi mein gori haseeno ko dekhta hoon, mere dil me kale kutte bhaukne lagte hain. Tab mein Black Dog whisky peeta hoon. (When I see fair-skinned beauties, black dogs bark in my heart. And then I order Black Dog whisky.’’

The reply, like the actor himself, was in a league of its own. At once crude, astounding, downright funny and the work of a creative script-writer, it brought out the strange truth that the best lines, nuances, gestures in a Hindi film are invariably the villain’s.

K.N. Singh’s booming voice that has little Raj Kapoor scurrying; gentleman Pran’s subtle movement of the eye, his curled lip; Ajit, the Last Lion … er, Last Loin, with his outlandish dark glasses and outsize shoes: Amrish Puri was the final entrant to the pantheon. Now the others are gone, Pran is retired and only Danny Denzongpa perhaps remains. The lesser baddies — from Prem Chopra to Gulshan Grover — never quite made the cut. Kader Khan was too busy trying to be comic to be seriously evil. Anupam Kher had potential but went too early into ‘‘good man’’ roles.

Puri was versatile. As a villain, he could be bizarre — the Italian-sounding Marcelloni in Commando, Bujang in Tridev. He could be Mr Sleazeball — as the rancher in Jaanbaaz, a take on Duel in the Sun (1946), with Puri in a role originally written for Lionel Barrymore. He could be real sadistic — the jailor in Sazaa-e-Kala Paani, corrupt lawyer Chaddha in Damini, the malevolent Bihari feudal lord in Koyla. He could make us laugh (Chachi 420). He could make us cry: Ardh Satya notwithstanding, his best performance as a non-villain, in fact as a victim, was perhaps in Gardish, a powerful film that, alas, fell off the radar. As did, this morning, Amrish Puri.