Bob Biswas To Lajja: 8 Iconic Villains Etched Into Bollywood’s Cinematic History

While his boss is screaming at him, an LIC agent checks the picture of an old lady that flashes across his mobile screen. Later, the agent rings a bell and the same old lady opens the door.

“Nomoshkar, Agnes D’Mello?” asks the innocuous-looking, smiling LIC agent.

The moment the woman confirms, “Ek minute,” says the LIC-agent-cum-contract-killer and pulling out his silent pistol, shoots her in cold blood.

Before leaving, he whips out his phone to check whether he had killed the right person, and calmly steps out.

Recycled printing paper, handmade paper notepads, bamboo pens and office accessories.  Check them all out in this eclectic collection of beautifully handcrafted stationery products.

For people who still have not guessed, he is Bob Biswas, who personally renders me speechless every time he shoots people dead, smiling in an innocently-creepy way after his humble ‘Nomoshkar’.

A psychopath, Bob Biswas, played by Bengali actor Saswata Chatterjee, is an integral character in the 2012 thriller Kahaani, starring Vidya Balan.

Bob is not your quintessential villain who has a vicious laughter, a fit body and evil expressions. In fact, he is an ordinary man with a paunch, who goes to the office during the day, wears huge glasses and can easily disappear in the crowd.

Bob’s character is now getting its own movie starring Abhishek Bachchan and as soon as the news broke, social media pages were flooded with excitement. Finally, the fans will now get an insight into Bob’s life.

Like Bob Biswas, Hindi cinema has given birth to terror-inducing and vicious villains, malefactors and assassins who have left a lasting impact in the minds of movie enthusiasts with their impeccable performances.

Here are seven other villains, who we feel, have left a mark on the history of Indian cinema:

1. Lajja Shankar Pandey: Movie—Sangharsh

The scene where Ashutosh Rana dressed in a red saree, screams madly at a scared Preity Zinta is nothing short of a nightmare.

Lajja Shankar Pandey is a character in Sangharsh who kills young children with a hope to become immortal.

Rana’s performance is remembered as one of the most intensely-portrayed one and is engraved in the list of the most iconic villains, ironically immortalising the character.

Rana’s ghastly role in the Kajol-starrer Dushman as Gokul Pandit, a serial rapist and murderer, is also unforgettable.

2. Gabbar Singh: Movie—Sholay

Dialogues of Gabbar Singh from the 70s superhit movie Sholay are probably the most imitated dialogues transcending all generations.

Even if you have not seen this Ramesh Sippy action-drama, you must still have come across Gabbar’s loud voice and notorious laughter somewhere on television.

Essayed by late actor Amjad Khan, the character took a lot of time and effort to be perfected by the dream team of Salim-Javed. No wonder, actors like Danny Denzongpa, Amitabh Bachchan and Sanjeev Kumar were in the race to play Gabbar.

Know more about the life of Gabbar aka Amjad Khan here.

3. Mogambo: Movie—Mr. India

As soon as you type Mogambo, Google will complete the rest of the sentence for you “. . . . khush hua”.

Amrish Puri did not conform to the stereotypical image of a movie hero and thanks to that, Hindi cinema got to witness him play some of the most memorable bad guys.

But of all the roles, Mogambo from Mr India, stands out.

Interestingly, actor Anupam Kher was the first choice for the role. Though upset initially on being replaced, Kher later confessed that the makers of the film took the right decision.

“When you are dropped from a film then generally an actor feels bad, but when I watched Mr India and saw Amrishji’s work as Mogambo then, I thought the makers of the film took the right decision by casting him in their film,” he told IANS.

Read more about Amrish Puri here.

4. Ishwar ‘Langda’ Tyagi: Movie—Omkara

Actor Saif Ali Khan turned out to be a surprise element in Vishal Bharadwaj’s Omkara—an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Othello. After playing a metrosexual man in movies like Hum Tum, Dil Chahta Hai and Salam Namaste, Khan wowed people with his body language and perfectly-delivered lines in the local dialect of the interiors of western UP, outperforming his co-actors in several scenes.

Treacherous, cold-hearted and manipulative, Tyagi walks with a limp and plays revenge games with Kesu Upadhyaya (Vivek Oberoi) and Omi Shukla (Ajay Devgn).

5. Rahul Mehra: Movie—Darr

Way before Shah Rukh Khan conquered millions of hearts across the world with his charming and relatable roles, he was every woman’s nightmare as an obsessive stalker in Yash Chopra’s Darr.

Shah Rukh Khan’s character in the movie is so obsessed with Kiran (Juhi Chawla) that his intentions turn malicious and murderous, hell-bent on killing the man Kiran was in love with.

This is not the only film where Khan played an antagonist. Who can forget the scene in Baazigar where he pushes Shilpa Shetty from the terrace of a building to her gruesome death?

6. Isha (spoiler alert!): Movie—Gupt

Throughout this whodunnit, audiences are left guessing the identity of the mysterious killer.

Is it a politically-driven murder, money dispute or it is really Sahil (Bobby Deol) who killed his step-father for publicly insulting his girlfriend Isha (Kajol)?

I remember how my elder sister refused to speak to her best friend for months after she revealed the name of the murderer. And she was not the only ‘unlucky’ one to get the spoiler.

In a major plot twist and against everyone’s expectation, Kajol turns out to be the killer who ruthlessly stabs people who come in her and Sahil’s way.

It was a very bold move on Kajol’s part for shedding the heroine image and playing a villian in the beginning of her career.

7. Makdee

In and as Makdee, Shabana Azmi managed to convince cinemagoers, especially children, of a world where witchcraft was still alive.

With her long nails, demonic look, evil laughter and hatred for children, Azmi is unrecognisable in the movie.

She transforms Munni (Shweta Basu) into a chicken after she enters her house due to a prank. So, her identical twin Chunni agrees to bring a chicken daily in hopes of getting her sister back.

Released in 2002, Vishal Bharadwaj’s directorial Makdee definitely gave sleepless nights to many who feared entering a dilapidated building alone, even during the day.

So which one is your favourite bad guy?

Also Read: 17 ‘Must Watch’ Bollywood Films That Were Way Ahead of Their Times!

(Edited by Saiqua Sultan)

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