"Being good does not pay"

FOR over 30 years, he has been leering at women and disrobing them with his eyes and has been acknowledged as the ‘rape expert’ on the Hindi screen. Amritsar-born Ranjeet (Gopal in real life. ‘Goli’ to his friends) began his Bollywood career with the 1969 hit, Sawan Bhadon. So far he has starred in more than 300 films in half-a-dozen languages. Along with Pran and Amrish Puri, he has been recognised as one of the triumvirate of screen villainy. These days, Ranjeet, is taking it easy. He took a break and designed and built a fabulous bungalow in Juhu, Ranjeet also ventured into TV serials and was recently was seen on the stage, that too in anEnglish play. Believe it or not, the famous villain played a bumbling police inspector Bhatti from Bhatinda in a farce which was full of topical allusions. The day after the stage performance, V. Gangadhar met him at his ‘dream’ bungalow. Ranjeet talked about his ‘villainous’ roles, Bollywood experiences and adventure as a stage actor. Excerpts:

From 1969 to 1998, it has been a long span of 30 years in Bollywood.

You are right. I really slaved with three or four shifts a day, in the beginning and even shot in between played the sophisticated, urban villain, the crude rural villain, the lecherous zamindar’s son or the dacoit. The industry exploited me and many producers took me for granted. They did not even design my roles properly. Ranjeet sab kar dega was their attitude.

Have you retired from the screen?

Not really. The offers are coming, but as far as I am concerned, the old enthusiasm is not there. How many times can one do the same type of roles? The villain’s role is getting diminished. It all began with the multistarrers where some of the top heroes began to play the villain’s role. And now every hero wants to play the ‘negative hero’. I don’t know what they mean by that. Many of today’s heroes undercut their normal prices to get roles. Tell me who are the people who make movies these days? It is those connected with music companies. They depend on the sales of cassettes for their money, not the quality of the movies. It is not like the old days. I am now planning my own movie. The script is being got ready and other details will be finalised soon.

Earlier you made two movies, Karnama and Gajab Tamasha. Would you agree that they did not make any impact.

Not entirely. Karnama surprised a lot of people. There was no sex, violence in the film. It had a good theme, and the Censor Board members recommended it to members of Parliament. But I had lots of production hassles. Being accommodating in this industry, does not pay.

Didn’t you know the industry inside out?

That was also the impression I had. Sometimes, friends and colleagues in the industry do let you down. I had worked on the Karnama script for nearly three years and assembled a first class cast. Rekha, who sounded enthusiastic initially, told me she could not accommodate my dates for location shooting because for some reason or the other, she had to be in Mumbai every night. I decided to do the film without her and she returned the signing amount. My hero, Vinod Khanna, was in and out of his Rajneesh phase. Since my production was progressing slowly, he signed a number of other films which were released before mine. But all of them flopped and Vinod acquired the image of a flop hero which was detrimental to my film. I then roped in Jayaprada who had some kind of lafda with Dharmendra who was also in the cast. She dropped out and I found very few top heroines willing to work with Dharam because they were co-starring with his son, Sunny. Finally, I made the film with Kimi Ketkar and Farah, and it did not do well. As for Gajab Tamasha, the film became famous for all the wrong reasons. One of the posters designed without my knowledge showed heroine Anu Agarwal’s undergarments. For a Hindi film to succeed, it should have saleable stars and catchy tunes. My film lacked both these and failed.

You had absolutely no stage experience. How did the offer to act in Hanky Panky come through?

To tell you the truth, I can’t even sit through a play or the trial run of a film. I get fidgety. From 1990, I was no longer doing double or triple shifts because I needed time for my bungalow. It was lovingly designed and built by me. In the meantime, I worked in two or three TV serials and found the experience quite good. Then some friends suggested I do this play for which the producer and director had approached me. My wife prodded me to accept this new challenge. I thought; why not? After all, I did not depend on the stage for a living. I saw to it that the rehearsals were held in my house.

Since this was an English play, were there any problems with the dialogue delivery?

I admit that my English was of high school standard, but I had no problems. I mean, I did not forget lines. Hanky Panky, no doubt was an English farce, but it had been adapted to an Indian environment. I suggested that occasionally, the Inspector should switch over to Hindi or Punjabi.

Director Janak Toprani readily agreed. There was a ‘family’ feeling about the rehearsals. No one was bossing around. I improvised a bit and the director okayed these. The first show was in Pune. The real test was in Mumbai where the audiences were more critical. But there was no problem, everyone cheered us. The city police commissioner and some other officers attended one of the shows and complimented me.

My co-stars were not in awe of me and they joked and laughed with me. I appeared on stage shows in the past where I could do anything I wanted, like repeating dialogues from films or singing songs. But in Hanky Panky discipline was needed as I was part of a team.

Tell me something about your work in TVserials.

I liked the continuity of TV serials. A character can really develop because a serial has numerous episodes. In films, the director is partial to the hero in order to appease him he could chop off some of the best scenes of the character actors, including the villains. This could be frustrating. This did not happen in T.V. serials. Recently when we went into the interiors of Rajasthan for shooting, the people called me ‘Sher Khan’, the character I played in the TV serial, Junoon. They did not remember Ranjeet, who had acted in 300 films! Similarly, in the cities, my performance as Khanna Saheb, in the serial, Baat Ban Jaye was appreciated. This was quite a revelation for me.

What are your future plans?

I still hope to do some good films, and of course, produce and direct my third film. TV serials are definitely on and I may start my own production unit. One of the subjects I am working on is a serial on Mahmud Ghazni. Not his military conquests but his love for an Indian princess. Of course, I am keen to do more plays if the roles offered were satisfying. There was still a lot of good work to be done in the entertainment world..