Character actor Shivraj passes away

Character actor Shivraj, who was one of the most recognisable faces in the Hindi cinema of the 1950s and the 60s, died on Saturday.

“He was an essential element of many films even though he may not have been the most important aspect,” recollects film and music expert Pavan Jha. If the film were to be compared to a car and the hero-heroine to its engine, then Jha likens the veteran actor to the nuts and bolts of the vehicle — not talked about much but of immense value.

Film and history buff K.V. Ramesh remembers seeing him early on in Amiya Chakraborty’s

Patita (1953) where he played the young villain, the rich and lustful owner of the poor heroine’s shanty, who rapes her, blackmails her and alters the course of her life forever.

But villainy didn’t stay with him for long. Jha remembers him as an old fakir in M.V. Raman’s

Pehli Jhalak (1955) lip-syncing the Hemant Kumar song Zameen chal rahi, aasman chal raha hai . In the prime of his youth, he graduated to playing the old, benign guardian figure or the loyal, obedient manager/servant. A stereotype he couldn’t quite break away from. But it made him part of some iconic films: Amiya Chakraborty’s Seema (1955) where he is the ineffectual uncle Kashinath, with whom Nutan lives initially after her parents’ death. He is Paro’s father, Nilkant, in Bimal Roy’s Devdas (1955). He played a Christian priest in L.V. Prasad’s Miss Mary (1957).

Ramesh remembers him in Naresh Saigal’s Ujala (1959) as the “acharyaji of an orphanage who weans Shammi Kapoor away from crime and supports him in sticking to the straight and narrow path”. He plays Kapoor’s loyal manager in Subodh Mukherjee’s Junglee (1961). Again he plays the devoted diwan (minister) to Kapoor’s prince in K. Shankar’s Raj Kumar (1964), the one who never doubts the prince’s sanity when he is indulging in all kinds of crazy antics to fool his enemies.

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He is present as the foster father in two of Hindi cinema’s most beloved lost and found epics — in Nasir Hussain’s Yaadon Ki Baraat (1973) as Vijay Arora’s dad and in Manmohan Desai’s Amar Akbar Anthony (1977) where he plays Rishi Kapoor’s father, the kindly tailor Ilahabadi.

Janwar, Bhoot Bangla, Pyaar Kiye Jaa, Mera Saaya, Shagird, Baharon Ke Sapne, Saraswatichandra, Do Raaste, Anamika, Uljhan, Naya Din Nayi Raat, Kasme Vaade, Mard, Aakhir Kyun, Mrityudand — Shivraj acted in many films in a career spanning almost five decades. He was prolific, in the same league then as Nasir Hussain and Nana Palsikar, and is said to have acted in more than 200 films though film website imdb credits him as an actor in 165.

Ramesh remembers seeing him last in Dev Benegal’s English August (1994) as a “social worker/local politician” who is saddened when Tanvi Azmi’s daughter mocks and imitates a beggar. It has him wonder aloud: “Is this what they teach in school these days to children?”. Jha recollects encountering him in the Doordarshan serials of the 80s and the 90s.