Ashutosh Rana.
The villain with a big red bindi on his forehead, a nose ring and a scary cry wearing a saree was shown on the Indian cinema screen for the first time in the year 1999. The name of the film was ‘Sangharsh’. Akshay Kumar and Preity Zinta were in lead roles in this film. The characters of Akshay Kumar and Preity Zinta were quite strong, but the villain of this film, who scared people by shaking his tongue, was more powerful than everyone else. The name of this character who disguised himself as a woman and kidnapped children was Gokul Pandit alias Lajja Shankar, a religious fundamentalist. This character believed in barbaric methods to achieve immortality. This role was played by Ashutosh Rana. This is also considered to be the most influential character of his career. Ashutosh Rana made such an impact on people through his looks and expressions that even today people get scared after seeing him.
This is how I got the role of Lajja Shankar
Lajja Shankar’s evil intentions were brought to life by Ashutosh Rana with his performance. His character in the film used to cry whenever he felt pressure. Ashutosh Rana had made a special request to Mahesh Bhatt for this character, that too when Mahesh Bhatt pranked him. He says, ‘I was shooting in Hyderabad. I left him and ran to Mumbai to meet Bhatt sir. I asked them how could they sign someone else? Either they audition me and then reject me or they just say that I did not do justice to Dushman (1998). I won’t let anyone else do this role. Bhatt sir laughed and said that since he had not met me for a long time, he was joking. Because if they didn’t I would never have come. This role was written for me only.
The storyline was something like this
When ‘Sangharsh’ was released, it was not a mainstream film, but today this type of film is considered mainstream. Many people believe that ‘Sangharsh’ is a film inspired by ‘The Silence of the Lambs’. Akshay Kumar was in the role of Professor Aman in the film. Preity Zinta was in the role of CBI officer Reet Oberoi. It was shown in the story that Professor Aman is spending his days in jail, but to solve Lajja Shankar’s case, Reet takes the help of Professor Aman and exposes Lajja Shankar who kidnaps children. This film was made under the direction of Tanuj Chandra. Mahesh Bhatt wrote the story of this film. Four crore rupees were spent in making this film and the film earned Rs 9 crore worldwide. By the way, this film is counted among the cult classic films.
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