Kaante khile hain, Gulshan Gulshan!

Gulshan Grover as Laljibhai in Nagraj Manjule’s Matka King

Back in the early '90s, actor Gulshan Grover told me during a podcast once, that he was shooting an action scene with stunt-director Veeru Devgan at Filmistan Studio. In walked Shah Rukh Khan (SRK), charging towards Grover.

They instantly got into an argument. A crowd gathered around both - assuming a fight would break out. It stopped at a ‘tu-tu-main-main' kinda tête-à-tête.

The backstory goes thus. Grover, in a TV interview, had blasted SRK for taking on the villain's part in Baazigar (1993) - as a "short-cut to grab attention/popularity".

SRK had simply come down to tell Grover, he was in the game as a Bollywood hero, for the long run. And that the antagonist's role was merely a "personal challenge". Grover accepted the point.

His own insecurity may have arisen from leading men potentially taking over the sizzling stock-villain parts that Grover had championed, mid-80s onwards - as Mahesh Bhatt told him, "Gulshan Grover, never over!"
Some of that did happen, eventually.

‘Bad Man' Kesariya Vilayati in Subhash Ghai's Ram Lakhan

For instance, Grover recalled, "An out-of-work hero, still with a fan-base among older members of a family, would pick up the villain's role."

He'd do all the cool things, but then refuse to get badly bashed up, or intensely humiliated, at the film's finale - something that Grover was only too happy to. "We want to see the villain beaten and dragged, but this guy's already shot himself!" Which defies mythological convention - of stringent punishment to counter pure evil, in simple, moral tales, where truth alone triumphs; no? "You'd have the film's ending compromised," Grover sighed.

Shortly before this chat, he'd presented me bottled perfumes, with his face on it. The label read: Bad Man. I never tried it on - wondering what must a bad man smell like! There's also a full-fledged mockumentary film, with Grover, called Badman (2016).

At an older age, when you might seek respect from a memoir, publisher Penguin was clear, they wanted Grover's to be "titled Bad Man, with a ‘gundey ka photo' for the cover!"

All of this might be a global first. For, Bad Man is merely a ‘takia kalaam' (recurring refrain), not even a character's name.

And the only two words that director Subhash Ghai narrated to Grover, onboarding him as villain Kesariya Vilayati in Ram Lakhan (1989) - itself the Avenger of villains & henchmen, starring Amrish Puri (Bishambhar Nath), Paresh Rawal (Bhanu Nath), Raza Murad (Sir John), Anand Balraj (Debu), besides Anupam Kher, Satish Kaushik for comic relief.

Grover appears for max five-six short scenes. Overenthusiastic Anil Kapoor (Lakhan), in that customary moment to teach ‘Bad Man' Kesariya a lesson, also got so carried away, pounding him with "new shoes he'd bought from abroad" that Grover had to be hospitalised.

Later, Kapoor sent Grover a bouquet, with a note: "What are friends for, if not to be kicked around?"

Kapoor and Grover were classmates at the popular coach Roshan Taneja's acting school.

Which is also where Grover, an MCom grad from Delhi's prestigious SRCC, found a job as an acting instructor, thereafter. Grover's former students include Sunny Deol, Tina Munim (nee Ambani), Kumar Gaurav, Sanjay Dutt…

"For the first [proper] role," Grover starred as Dutt's friend in Rocky (1981). He remembers Shabana Azmi got him the part of the "badmaash son" in Avtaar (1983). His breakthrough as "main villain (Noor)," however, came with Sohni Mahiwal (1984), opposite Deol. Audiences witnessed him in a negative role in Sadma (1983) too.

Right from acting school, Grover had his eyes on the villain, bearing shelf-life in mind: "[Bollywood] heroes become brands. What if you get bald, podgy, with age?"

Once securely established as the archetypal antagonist, Grover started to painstakingly design the look for his parts, leafing through international magazines, passing them on to a team of experts - Suresh Dada (make-up), Malik ‘Wig', Mukesh ‘Tailor', Nath Gupta (photographer).

Slipping into his ‘get-up' could take forever. Several heroes patiently waited. Some, such as Mithun Chakraborty, jokingly complained, "I could finish two shoots in the two hours it takes for your make-up!"

What emerged, with hundreds of movies, over a decade-plus, is a series of uniquely fashioned characters, that could fill up a hall of fame, or infamy, as it were: Chhappan Tikli (Sir), Kali Baba (Shola Aur Shabnam), Tyson (Mohra), Kabeera (Hera Pheri), Thakral (International Khiladi)…

To misquote poet Jigar Moradabadi, "Kaante [as against phool] khile hain gulshan gulshan, lekin apna apna daaman (Thorns blooming in every garden, each with their own cardigan)."

Steadily, the idea of Bollywood villains itself started to change. Grover argues, "Writing reflects life. People became clever. You couldn't walk out, [dressed] like me [‘Bad Man']. The police will arrest you! The bad hid behind the good, merging with [the larger] society."

As with Grover's full-time rogue, Laljibhai, in Nagraj Manjule's series Matka King (Prime Video), where the hero (Vijay Varma) himself is an illicit gambling kingpin.

The show sorta felt slow and predictable to me. Isn't there such cuddly comfort in catching Grover as the ‘Bad Man' still, I thought!

Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14
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