People for whom being eternally old isn’t such a bad idea, the passing away of AK Hangal (Aug 15, 1915 – Aug 26, 2012) might have snatched away the cinematic glow of their twilight years. And the response to his death could be put in the immortal words of Rahim Chacha (Imam Sahab) in the 1975 blockbuster – Sholay: “Itna sannata kyun hai bhai?” (Why is there a lull?). Hangal Sahab’s dignified presence in an unassuming corner of the silver screen can never be described in Wordsworth’s words: “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven!”.

Your memories of AK Hangal might not place much premium on youth, but his younger years were remarkable in their own ways – as a theatre artist traversing the years before and after independence (1936-45), and as a member of the Left-leaning Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA). But chronicles of his journey may conceal something that nudges our collective memory about Hangal Sahab – the dignity of his ordinariness, the grandfather next door.

In his frail anatomy, feeble voice and reassuring parental presence, one could live the possibilities and limitations of his life and times. For a man who started his cinematic journey at the age of 50 and stuck to his non-filmy sounding name Avtar Kishan Hangal, the typecasting in character roles was as “normal” as the conventions which guide the stereotypes of the film industry. But, in carving a niche for himself in the confines of those stereotypes, Hangal Sahab had a kind of taken-for-granted presence in the family narratives of Hindi films. Similar to that of a no-maintenance but ever reliable piece of old furniture in a cosy corner of your house.

In the post-Nehruvian times of Hindi cinema’s engagement with the shifting sands of urban family structures and rural social milieu, he somehow symbolised an elderly grace of a bygone era. Never rushed even in moments of histrionics. One word at a time.

Just exercise your memory – can you really put out of frame the effortless and understated civility with which he played father to Jaya Bhaduri in two very different situations in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Guddi (1971) and Abhimaan (1972)? Perhaps not. And how lingering are the memories of his restrained act as Ramnath Sharma in Bawarchi (1972), who beyond regular arguments has a regret of not being able to send his brother to Cambridge? Hangal Sahab could hold his own glow in a galaxy of star-centric film narratives. And that’s why you can’t forget his presence in even blink-and-you-miss roles, as in the star-studded Sholay. Ramgarh’s quest for religious diversity found an answer in his role as Imam Sahab who loses his son to Gabbar’s terrorising ways. Just blink, and you would miss this iconic one-liner which (though not the most poignant of his cinematic moments) has become synonymous with his name.

He also witnessed the changing contours of Mumbai’s political discourse. As a sign of the times, Hangal Sahab had an encounter with the upsurge of jingoistic forces in Mumbai’s civic life in the early Nineties. Sharply reacting to his visa application to visit his birthplace in Pakistan, Bal Thackeray called him a “traitor” and the Shiv Sena asked people to boycott his films. Steeped in the secular ethos of Nehruvian times and his own experiences as a freedom fighter in an independence struggle that had a broader worldview, the point of departure in the city’s political narratives couldn’t have been sharper for him.

In 2006, when Mumbai-based writer and journalist Jerry Pinto’s book Helen: The Life and Times of an H-Bomb was published, two thoughts crossed my mind. One, it was significant in the genre of cinematic historiography because it was the first serious attempt to have a biographical narrative on the fringe figures (villains/vamps/comedian/character actors, etc.) who caught the cinematic imagination in their days. Two, I also thought what a great topic Hangal Sahab would be for such a biographical account. In living and observing the evolutionary strands of Indian theatre and mainstream Hindi cinema from the sidelines, he could have been the stuff of any biographer’s delight. With his passing away, it’s a pity that if ever such an attempt is made, he would not be there to authenticate it.

It has been said that a film actor is one who grows insecure when he is not recognised from two paces away. This does not hold water for Hangal Sahab. He sneaks into your memory in his own nonagenarian ways; never seeks to barge in. He missed his birth centenary by three years. In the portrayal of our limitations that sink in with greying hair and in embodying the endearing civility of the old world, the defining quiver and poise in AK Hangal’s voice would stand out in the cinematic cacophony. In our vicarious engagement with old age on the silver screen, Hangal Sahab was a site that we visited so many times. He didn’t disappoint. When old age met effortless grace next door, Hangal Sahab was there.