Skip to main content

Pran's Debut

Taken from an old article by K. Razdan for a film magazine.
The story of his long, long struggle begins from Lahore, now in Pakistan, It was 1938 - one moonlit midnight. A young boy of eighteen, who was employed in a photographer's shop on a monthly salary of Rs.150/-,stood in a relaxed mood before a 'paan' shop. He was slightly tipsy because he had taken one or two "chhotas". He was handsome, smart and he wore a confident look on his face. He waited for his turn to pick up the 'pan' from the 'paanwala'...and here, he had a date with his destiny.
Walli Sahib, the well-known writer (who later married Muntaz Shanti, the heroine of the Bombay Talkies hit."Kismat") arrived there, also to buy a 'paan'. He stared at the young man, examined him from head to toe and felt he had found the one he was looking for. Walli Sahib was fanatically on the look-out for a young man to fit the villain's role for a Punjabi film. Walli Sahib, who was himself slightly high in spirits at that time, offered the role to the young man who, in fact, did not care much for the offer. the young man, however, asked him curiously,"May I know your name, please?" "Walli," Walli Sahib replied. The young man laughed mischievously and muttered to himself that everyone after a few drinks at midnight considers himself to be a "Walli". Walli, in Urdu, means a self-realized person. the young man reluctantly promised to turn up at the studio but he actually forgot all about it the very next moment. After three or four days, he went to see an English movie at a matinee show and as luck would have it, Walli Sahib once again bumped into him during the interval. Walli Sahib asked him,"What happened?You did not turn up. Why?" The young man realized the seriousness of the offer for the first time, since the offer was made in the daytime. He went to the studio the next day and was selected to play the villian's role in a Punjabi film "Yamla Jat", on a monthly remuneration of Rs.50/-. This is how Pran, the young man of 18, started his career in films. Directed by Moti B.Gidwani, for producer D.M. Pancholi, "Yamla Jat" became a big hit. It was edited by Shaukat Hussain who introduced Pran in the leading role after a few months in "Khandaan' (directed by Shaukat Hussain himself) opposite Noor Jehan, described as the Nightingale of Punjab on account of her great singing faculties. "Khandaan" was also a big hit of its time and soon Pran hit the headlines.

Comments

  1. Nice post Vinayak Bhai,perhaps Pran may be the oldest surviving mainstream Hindi cine artist at the moment.I wish him long life with good health.
    Personally i feel that it would have been better to read if the scanned image of that article itself has been posted rather than only its textual version.
    In future pl try to post the high resolution images of the original page(s) where these articles did appeared.

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a find! It's so hard to imagine the voice I know from so many 70s roles coming out of a young man - and probably without the wigs! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Zaheer,
    these old magazines have really big pages and scanning them is quite a task. So I just post sections that interest me, also saves me headache of copyright issues. Full articles I often give out in emails on demand and need.
    Beth,
    he had a knack for sketching characters with quirky attributes, but that somehow made the character more real. Like in some movies you can watch him deliver a nasty dialogue while snapping fingers and holding a cigarette between ring finger and the pinky. I have seen some old-timers smoke-talk that way.

    ReplyDelete
  4. RIP Pran (2 February 1920 - died 12 July 2013).

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I always like to hear back :)
However, irrelevant comments and irrelevant links will not be published. Needless to say, same goes for abusive comment and spam. Leaving back links related to the topic is encouraged. I know it can be tempting but try not to leave your email ids, phone nos and CVs in the comment.

Popular posts from this blog

Famous Old Faces of Doordarshan

Some people recall the faces and some people recall the names. Here are images of some of the famous readers and presenters of Doordarshan down the years. If you recognize any of them, leave a comment. [ Update 1 : Most of the faces now have names thanks to helpful comments by olio-gallimaufry ] [ Update 2 : Included image of one of the earliest presenters, Gopal Kaul. Send in generously from personal collection by son, Ashutosh Kaul. Sept, 2010.] [ Major Update 3: Got a tip-off about a documentary about the famous faces of Doordarshan from the makers   of     “The Golden Trail , DD@50 :Special feature on Golden Jubilee of Doordarshan ” from which these caps were taken. I managed to catch the incredible documentary and am adding some more faces/name and part of the docu here. New ones can be found after the image of  Narotam Puri. 30th Oct, 2010]  Pratima Puri. Believed to be the first Doordarshan reader.

Indian Cigarette Vintage Ads

He put a cigarette in his mouth and, as a matter of silent routine, offered one to Gwyn, who said ‘No thanks.”Richard looked at him.”I packed it in.”"You what?”"I stopped. Three days ago. Cold. That’s it. You just make the life choice.” Richard looked up and inhaled needfully. He gazed at his cigarette. He didn’t really want to smoke it. He wanted to eat it. Almost the only thing that he still liked about Gwyn was that he still smoked…Paradoxically, he no longer wanted to give up smoking: what he wanted to do was take up smoking. Not so much to fill the little gaps between cigarettes with cigarettes (there wouldn’t be time, anyway) or to smoke two cigarettes at once. It was more that he felt the desire to smoke a cigarette even when he was smoking a cigarette. The need was and wasn’t being met… While it would always be true and fair to say that Richard felt like a cigarette, it would now be doubly true and fair to say it. He felt like a cigarette. And he felt like a cig

Kishore Kumar, Yodel-ay-ee-oooo Songs, A List

*Updated with corrections pointed out by Bart Plantenga , author of some incredible book on Yodeling including Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo: The Secret History of Yodeling Around the World. -0- Kishore Kumar 's brother Anoop Kumar, who we basically know for the line ' O manu tera toh hua ab mera kya hoga ', used to own lots of Austrian music records. And from these records, Kishore Kumar picked up the art of Yodel singing, an art perfected in bathroom and then introduced by him to the world of Hindi film music. According to his biography 'Kishore Kumar: method in madness‎ ' by Derek Bose, "Kishore was a fan of the Swiss singer Tex Norton [* Tex Morton, an Australian cowboy born in New Zealand who sang  in the gene autry / Jimmie Rodgers style ] and the Australian Jimmy Rogers [* Jimmie Rodgers , perhaps the most American and one of the most famous yodelers in the world, famous for his blue yodels ] as well." Although most of these songs by Kishore Kumar are t