Tracing the Journey of Villains in Hindi Cinema - Author & Award-winning Journalist Balaji Vittal in Conversation.
They say a movie is only as good as its villain, and several movies have gained cultlike status thanks to their antagonists. Published by HarperCollins India Pure Evil The Bad Men of Bollywood by Balaji Vittal examines in delightful detail the rogue gallery of Hindi cinema over the decades, spotlighting the dark and icon nick villains who have managed to steal the show from many of the heroes that they were paired with. For instance, Gabbar from Sholay, Kamini from Karz, Pran and many more whom we've all grown up watching
Balaji Vittal
@BalajiVittal · 4:58
The characters that he writes about is only sort of a reflection of the characters, of the people that he has met in the life around him. So, similarly, when we talk about cinema, which is also an art form, obviously what we see on screen would be a reflection of the society around us because a filmmaker, too, is an artist and he's also inspired by events and things that are happening around him
That was so interesting. Thank you for putting that together for us and walking us through the whole evolution of negative characters over the years in Hindi films. Pure evil. The Bad Men of Bollywood, is your fourth book about Hindi films? You have co authored award winning books on SD Burman and RD. Burman. And if I'm right, you've written a book on Hindi film songs as well. You've also extensively written for film companion Ei shomoi, MetroPlus, Scroll and the Quint
Balaji Vittal
@BalajiVittal · 4:55
They said, what do you want to write? I said, I don't know. They said, okay, we'll give you a chance. They gave me a chance. I think they must have liked it. So they started giving me more opportunities to write in MetroPlus, and I'm very grateful to them. So Adi Berman was the first book that Aniruda and I wrote, and we are extremely grateful to Harper Collins for having given us the opportunity. And that book won the national award
Balaji Vittal
@BalajiVittal · 4:52
He is an absolutely expert along with Parthiv Dhar who's like a walking museum on Kishore Kumar. So I said you guys do it and let me do this one. Initially I had no idea of how to go about writing the Pure Evil book because I started by writing short story synopsis of those films. So it was just looking like a Wikipedia sort of a collection of Wikipedia synopsis, which was not the idea at all. The story of the book was not coming out
Balaji Vittal
@BalajiVittal · 2:43
You know, I'm extremely grateful to the industry and all the people because they were so helpful, so forthcoming, so positive about it, because they saw it as their own book. They felt they were the characters in a book, that they were part of characters in a film that I was scripting. And they gave me much more time than what I had expected they would. You know Mr. Danny Denzongpa? I had fixed up an appointment with him
Ha. I really loved what you said about good coming out of evil. I think this definitely is a case in point. And the unique structure of the book is definitely something that makes it stand out from many other books in the genre. It certainly is one of its kind. I think. I will leave you with one final question. Um, to be honest, it's hard to think of a big, bad Bollywood villain today
Balaji Vittal
@BalajiVittal · 4:56
So those were very unreal, very fantasy driven and sort of catering to the audience taste. And nothing wrong with that, just that times have changed. Bikumatre gets shot dead by a single bullet in an instant. No half page dialogue, no nothing. So I find the movies of the last 20 years and the villains in the last 20 years or 25 years far more nuanced, far more real, far more tangible and far more associatable
Balaji Vittal
@BalajiVittal · 1:43
So I am really saying that while I loved those big, larger than life, those cutouts, those huge poster sized villains of those decades, I find these characters also equally engaging for a very different reason altogether. And that's what made the journey of writing this book so much fun. So many things have changed in the last 2025 years. If you look at a film like Delhi Belly, it was like crime comedy
It comes highly recommended. Pure Evil is among the most discussed books on Hindi cinema this year, so please do check it out. Also for all the film buffs and cinephiles on Swell. If you do have any questions for Balaji, do drop them in the comments. I'm sure he'd be happy to take them on and share his expertise. So yes, long live the big bad men of Bollywood. Thank you so much, everyone for tuning in
