Anirudh Agarwal

QAMYAB – THE FORGOTTEN GEMS OF BOLLYWOOD

Qamyab is our humble tribute to all those lesser-known actors, one hit wonders and junior artists who we see umpteen times but don’t know about; beyond their faces. These actors have been an integral part of Bollywood but didn’t get their due. This series is our sincere attempt to put a name to these faces, familiarize them to our readers and celebrate their achievements in life – however big or small. We believe that every artist contributes in his/her own way to the cinema’s success. Qamyab will explore the unknown lives of such actors and artists as we believe even these forgotten gems of Bollywood deserve their due recognition today.

Ramsay brothers are synonymous with the horror genre in Bollywood starting out in 1972 with Do Gaz Zameen Ke Neeche and becoming a trendsetter of sorts with their subsequent scare fares like Andhera (1975), Darwaza (1978), Guest House (1980), Saboot (1980), Sannata (1981), Dahshat (1981) and Hotel (1981). Most of these movies were box office hits.

In the early ’80s, the Ramsays decided to make Purana Mandir (1984) with then newcomers Mohnish Bahl and Aarti Gupta. The highlight of this film was not its lead stars but the monster Saamri played by Anirudh Agarwal.

In fact, Purana mandir is often mistaken to be Agarwal’s debut movie but that isn’t true. He had done few films before Purana Mandir. But this particular horror film proved to be the turning point in his career and opened the doors of Bollywood for him. After Purana Mandir’s success, people would either call him Ramsay ka bhoot or Saamri as nobody knew his real name and surprisingly, his name doesn’t even appear in the film’s credit titles.

Anirudh Agarwal was born on 20th December 1949 in Dehradun. He was a sports ambassador in his school days. He completed his civil engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee in 1974. After completing his degree, he started working as an engineer. But somewhere, he was bitten by the acting bug and in a shocking decision, quit his job and came to Mumbai to become an actor much against his parent’s wishes.

Anirudh Agarwal made his debut with Amne Samne (1982) which had Mithun Chakraborty in a dual role. He played Mithun’s henchman in it. Interestingly, his name appears as Vijay Agarwal in the credits. The same year, he appeared in Teri Maang Sitaron Se Bhardoon and Pyar Ke Rahi in which he is credited only by his last name (Agarwal). In a few other films, he is credited as Ajay Agarwal also. Anyway, lets stick to the name Anirudh for this article!!

When Anirudh Agarwal quit his job, he was suffering from a rare disease. He got a tumour in his pituitary gland which led to an increased height and a distorted face making him look scary. At that time, Purana Mandir was in the making and a friend suggested him to go for the audition. Until then, Ramsays were using masks for their ghosts. The Ramsay brothers (Tulsi and Shyam) upon seeing Anirudh, instantly cast him to play Saamri in their film. They also decided not to use any scary mask for him as they usually did but directly apply make up on his face.

Huge posters of a scary looking Anirudh Agarwal were plastered all over the cities and Purana Mandir gained tremendous attention all over. Upon release, it became a super duper hit making Ramsay Brothers recollect the times of their Do Gaz Zameen Ke Neeche. The euphoria of the film was such that in a particular small town in North India, Purana Mandir was attracting more crowd than Amitabh Bachchan’s Sharaabi (1984) because of the Saamri craze.

The Ramsays quickly cashed in on the opportunity and made a spinoff of Anirudh Agarwal’s Saamri character as 3D Saamri (1985) where he obviously played the titular character. Now, offers started pouring in for Anirudh Agarwal, mainly for the villain’s henchman roles. He signed films like Avinash (1986), Kasam (1988), Mar Mitenge (1988), Joshilaay (1989), Ram Lakhan (1989), Jaadugar (1989), Tum Mere Ho (1990), Aaj Ka Arjun (1990), Dushman (1990), Tahalka (1992), Gopalaa (1992) and Trimurti (1995).

After Purana Mandir and 3D Saamri, the Ramsays decided to experiment with different actors to play monsters in their films like Shamshuddin in Tahkhana (1987) and Manik Irani in Purani Haveli (1989). But both these films didn’t perform so well at the box office.

Quite naturally, Ramsay brothers reverted to Anirudh Agarwal for their next venture titled Bandh Darwaza (1990). This time, he was not playing Saamri but a blood sucking vampire called Nevla modelled on the lines of Dracula. The audiences showered their love on Nevla and Bandh Darwaza went on to be a hit and was the last successful movie for the Ramsays.

With advent of satellite television, Ramsay brothers decided to replicate their horror plots on the small screen and thus, The Zee Horror Show (1993) was born. Anirudh Agarwal went on to act in many episodes of this series and became a household name. The impact of Saamri stayed as he was part of two popular comedy serials in the ’90s for one episode each. The first was Sachin Pilgaonkar’s Tu Tu Main Main (1994) where he comes as a monster to scare the mother-in-law and daughter in law Reema Lagoo and Supriya Pilgaonkar, respectively but gets fed up with their banter and runs away. The second series Hum Paanch (1995) had a similar concept where the lead character Anand Mathur (Ashok Saraf) and his family shift to a new house which is haunted by Saamri but he gets scared of his daughters and runs away from the house.

During this time, Anirudh also got the opportunity to act in Hollywood films like The Jungle Book (1994) and Such a Long Journey (1998). In the year 1994, Anirudh played Babu Gujjar, a dreaded dacoit in Shekhar Kapur’s award winning Bandit Queen and earned acclaim for his realistic performance. He played a supporting role in Dharmesh Darshan’s Mela (2000) but this movie turned out to be a colossal flop.

After Mela, Anirudh decided to cut down on films and started his construction business. Post 2000, he worked in three films only – Talaash (2003), Journey Bombay To Goa (2007) and a lesser-known film Mallika (2010). Mallika remains his last release where his character was again called Saamri but he did not play a monster. He was hardly recognizable in the film due to his old age but his powerful voice was intact.

Anirudh Agarwal maintained a private life away from movies and limelight and sometime later, was speculated to be dead in a police shootout. This was obviously not true as the person killed was someone else called Mohammed Iqbal Sheikh, who incidentally resembled Agarwal due to the same disease. Presently, Anirudh Agarwal lives a blissful family life comprising his wife Neelam and children Aseem and Kapila in Andheri West, Mumbai (close to Shoppers Stop) It is said that his son acted in the film Fight Club (2006) and daughter appeared in Bunty Aur Babli (2005) and now, both are settled abroad.

Shyam Ramsay had shared an interesting trivia on Purana Mandir, a few years back. In the climax scene, Anirudh Agarwal had to get out of the coffin and scare everyone. The rehearsals went fine but during the actual take, Anirudh got locked in the coffin and couldn’t come out. He was desperately gasping for breath and shouting for help. Finally, he was taken out of the coffin after almost half an hour. He refused to shoot further but Shyam and Tulsi Ramsay convinced him to do the retake. This particular scene is one of the scariest in the film and Agarwal’s performance was highly appreciated.