I met the wonderful Avtar Kishan Gill in Patna sometime in the 1980s .He was here to perform in a play, and we met in the evening after his performance. He was very tired and not in the mood to talk to a journalist, and that too one who was only starting out in his career.
“Would you mind if I lie down and talk you?”
He conducted the entire interview in the supine position ,sometimes dozing off as he spoke about his early days and his very successful stint as a character actor in Hindi cinema.
“I come from a family where tailoring is the main profession. I only played the father or the uncle and that too the kind sort. I was 52 when I did my first role,a brief part in Basu Bhattacharya’s Teesri Kasam. I was already bald and looked much older ,so getting patriarchal parts was easy. Every film has to have fathers or uncles to the hero and heroine. I was happy to play the roles that came my way. It kept my kitchen fires burning,” Hangal Saab reminisced, making sure that I got the dates and places right.
His face lit up when he spoke about Jaya Bachchan. “I played her father in so many films that people actually believed that I was her father. She would tell me that fans would fondly ask her how her father was, meaning me. I was asked about my daughter by strangers. After a while I’d just smile and say she was fine: no one wanted to believe that we were not related, so I let it be. After all cinema is all about illusion.”
Among the many films that Hangal Saab did as Jaya Bhaduri’s father his favourite was Anil Ganguly’s Kora Kagaz.
“I played this quiet professor dominated by my wife(Achala Sachdev). Jaya and I had a memorable sequence where she breaks down and I console her. There were no words exchanged. It is one of my favourite scenes,” Hangal Saab mumbled.
Another favourite was Basu Chatterjee’s Shaukeen. “Along with Ashok Kumar and Utpal Dutt I played a ladies’ man. It is unusual for actors to be shown interested in s*x after a certain age.”
Hangal’s best known sequence is in Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay where he played a blind Muslim father whose only son is gunned down by dacoits.
Speaking about that beloved sequence Sholay’s leading man Dharmendra says, “To this day there is not a dry eye in the theatre when Hangal Saab says, ‘Jaante ho duniya main sabse bada bojh kya hota hai? Baap ke kandhe par bete ka janaza.’ I break down every time I watch Hangal Saab in that scene. Hangal Saab showed us that the length of the role didn’t matter. Even in a 5-minute appearance one can leave a lasting impression.”
Shabana Azmi recalls A K Hangal with much fondness.“He was a very close friend of my family. He costarred with my mother in several plays by IPTA. He was committed to using art as an instrument of social change and was in the forefront of all demonstrations and protests held on social issues. He used to be a tailor, and till the very end dressed nattily and stitched his own suits. He played a wily godman in Shatranj Ke Mohre to perfection, as also a film producer in Sagar Sarhadi’s Tanhai opposite my mum (Shaukat Azmi). I’d rate Sholay, Deewar and Arjun among his most memorable roles. He was a perfectionist and would ask so many questions about his character that all at IPTA would tease me if I asked too many questions and say, ‘Hangal ho gayi ho kya?’. He was a progressive liberal and a secular individual.”
Filmmaker Saurabh Tiwari in whose television production Madhubala Hangal did his final acting stint in 2012, remembers, “I was amazed by Hangal saab’s resilience. When I went to meet him I was shocked by how frail he was. I quietly made up my mind not to cast him. When I was leaving Hangal saab mumbled, ‘ Pehle scene to suna ke jao.’ I narrated the scene and wondered how he would manage in his condition. On the day of the shooting when he came in a wheelchair, my heart sank. But the minute the camera rolled Hangal saab was a changed man. We tried to make it as easy for him as possible, asking the other actors in the scene to support Hangal Saab. He was alert enough to see through our efforts. ‘ Mere dialogues tum doosron ko kyon de rahe ho?” he asked me. We all burst into spontaneous applause after he finished. While leaving Hangal saab said to me, ‘Bhoolchuk maaf karna.’”
Ashutosh Gowariker has many wonderful memories of Hangal, “In my growing up years, I remember several films that had Hangal saab in pivotal roles. And he always left a mark on me. Till date, I have not seen anyone play a blind man the way he did in Sholay. Years later, on the sets of Lagaan, I marveled at his artistry and craft, his creative inputs towards his character and his spirit to perform. For him acting was not a job but a real attempt to explore the nuances of the character he was portraying. His dedication was so intense that once during Lagaan when he had a back injury, instead of taking the option of going back to Mumbai he stayed on in Bhuj and shot for the film, despite all his pain and discomfort so that the film would not suffer. I saluted him then. I salute him today. I will remain forever indebted to this great actor called A. K. Hangal.”
In actor-director Anant Mahadevan’s directorial Dil Maange More, Hangal did an interesting cameo of a music connoisseur who visits a music store and insists a Mukesh number is sung by K L Saigal . “He kept saying ‘Planetarium’ instead of ‘Planet M’. But he corrected himself in the final take. Hangal saab was a real trouper. And full of amazing anecdotes from the time of India’s freedom struggle, and his stint in prison for raising his voice against the British Raj. His experiences were truly inspiring. Although he came from theatre he did the silent grief in Sholay so effectively… It still evokes a gasp of appreciation. But I’m sure he’d be remembered for more than just that scene in Sholay, much more.”
At the end of our interview as I got up to leave Hangal saab solicitously asked, “Beta, have you got everything that you want? Yes? Because otherwise I have a lot more to say.”
Never short of surprises, A K Hangal started late but succeeded in tailoring a career that is remembered to this day.