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Home » Entertainment » Remembering Bollywood’s Villain, Hamid Ali Khan better known as Ajit Khan on his 23rd death anniversary

Remembering Bollywood’s Villain, Hamid Ali Khan better known as Ajit Khan on his 23rd death anniversary

Hamid Ali Khan better known by his stage name Ajit, was a prolific Hindi film actor.

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Remembering Bollywood's Villain, Hamid Ali Khan better known as Ajit Khan on his 23rd death anniversary

Hamid Ali Khan (27 January 1922 – 21 October 1998), better known by his stage name Ajit, was a prolific Hindi film actor. He acted in over two hundred movies in almost four decades. Ajit is also credited for starring as a lead actor in popular Bollywood movies such as Nastik, Bada Bhai, Milan, Bara-Dari, and later as a second lead in Mughal-e-Azam and Naya Daur.

Ajit, who ran away from home to Mumbai after selling his college books, started his career in films in the 1940s. Luck did not favour him in the initial stages. He began with the 1946 movie Shahe Misra, acting opposite Geeta Bose, and also did films such as Sikander (van mala), Hatimtai (1947), Aap Beeti (Khursheed), Sone Ki Chidiya (Leela Kumari), Dholak (Meena Shori) and Chanda Ki Chandni (Monica Desai) as leading hero, but flopped. He did most of films (15) with Nalini Jaywant. Ajit switched over to play the villain. His first movie as a villain was Suraj, followed by films such as Zanjeer and Yaadon Ki Baaraat.

His famous dialogues included the ‘Mona darling’ in Yaadon Ki Baraat, ‘Lily don’t be silly’ in Zanjeer and the ones about a ‘Lion’ in Kallicharan. Ajit’s other well known films were Naya Daur, Nastik and Shikari to name only a few. In his four decades of film career, Ajit had acted along with the legendary Prithvi Raj Kapoor, Sohrab Modi, Amitabh Bachchan, I S Johar, Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand, Shami Kapoor, Dharmendra and many actresses, both young and old.

In the mid-seventies he had acted in over 57 films, mostly as a villain. His dialogue delivery remains popular even to this date. His colleagues in the film industry, leading personalities who have acted with him, grew seeing him in Mumbai expressed deep sorrow over the death of the legendary actor.

Writer Javed Akhtar, who scripted Zanjeer, said: “Like Bachchan, Ajit found a new image as a villain after Zanjeer. He started a new innings in his career though he was an established hero in the fifties. His villainy started a new trend. Here was a new villain who was soft-spoken yet forceful. We wanted to give a different image to villainy which matched the hero.”

Renowned for his distinctive performance and dialogue delivery in the audience, actor Ajit had to struggle a lot in the initial stages to achieve a different position in Bollywood. Born on 27 January 1922 in Golconda, Hamid Ali Khan alias Ajit was fond of acting since childhood. His father Bashir Ali Khan worked in the Nizam’s army in Hyderabad. He did his early education from Warangal district in Andhra Pradesh.

When he was in his forties, he moved to the film industry to become a hero and started his acting career with the film Shahey Egypt, released in 1946. From 1946 to 1956, Ajit struggled to make his place in the film industry. In 1950, director K. Amarnath advised him to shorten his film name.

After this, he changed his name to Ajit in place of Hamid Ali Khan and acted as a hero in the film ‘Beqasoor’, directed by K. Amarnath. In the year 1957, he appeared in the role of a villager in BR Chopra’s film ‘Naya Daur’. His role in the film was Gray Shades. The film was entirely centred on actor Dilip Kumar. Nevertheless, he managed to leave his mark on the audience. The year 1973 proved to be a major milestone in Ajit’s Bollywood career. That year, films like his Zanjeer, Yaadon Ki Baraat, Samjhauta, Kahani Kismat Ki and Jugnu were released, which set new records of success at the box office.

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