RIP OM Puri aka Joe D'Souza, Bollywood Has Lost Its Brightness With You!

RIP JoeDsouza

Ghayal  has been much written and talked about for Sunny Deol’s biggest acting effort and also for the start of a much celebrated director RK Santoshi’s super smasher career. To me Ghayal was also about a super cop. Joe Dsouza.

Today a lot will be written about the man who did this role. Om Puri , who has left us today. He has done much better probably in other roles which almost every critic worth his weight will tell you. Today however I chose to remember Inspector JoeDsouza.

Given the fact that we all are saddened by the news of Om Puri’s death today. I have to write this. JoeDsouza is one of our most ignored and under rated cop act from the 1990s. A by the book cop,who is as sharply dressed as his mind is assigned by the Mumbai police to protect an industrialist Balwant Rai against a fiercely determined avenger who has vowed to bring him and his gang down in 24 hours flat.

Om Puri’s Joe Dsouza appears on the screen only after 15 odd minutes of the interval are gone and from there on , backed by a well written role , he actually steals scenes away from Sunny and Amrish Puri. His stand out scene is when he tells his own boss about how the system itself is to be blamed for the path of violence that Ajay Mehra has chosen  when he tellingly delivers the message to his boss the police commissioner – agar kanoon se usse insaaf mila hota toh aaj jo kucch ho raha hai usski naubat nahi aati ! He also proceeds to tell the commissioner – maaf kijiye sir aisey kanoon ki seva karne ke bajay main vardee utaar ke ajay Mehra ka saath dena behtar samajhta hoon ! – I still remember the lusty catcalls of the audience at Chaudhary cinema Ghaziabad when these lines hit the audience. JoeDsouza stood with the villain but like Bheeshma we all knew his heart was on the other side of the battle.

Joe Dsouza was also the perfect antidote for Ajay’s smouldering intensity on screen and was actually the perfect balancer that Ghayal needed. Ajay is a character totally driven by raw emotions and thinks from the heart ,though he does plan his moves with some logic , the attack on Balwant Rai by tracking his moves and hiding inside the commissioner’s home itself bear testimony to that but he does not mind killing himself to get Balwant. Joe Dsouza was cold, logical and he reads people. So clearly brought out when he tells Balwant Rai – Ajay Mehra ka jail se bhaagne ka  maksad hai aap ko marna apni azaaadi nahi !

From the time that JoeDsouza comes one screen till the end of Balwant Rai , Ghayal increasingly becomes a game of cat and mouse between Ajay and JoeDsouza which the cop almost ends up winning till Ajay kills Balwant right in front of him in less than a second. As well written roles have it , Om puri with that wry smile on his face emotes to the entire scene in that one moment that he does not mind losing this battle. Deep down by then he has little respect for the man he is fighting for.

Rest in peace JoeDsouza ! Bollywood has lost its brightness today by considerable number of degrees.

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