As the hundred years of the Indian cinema, the largest film industry in the world, was being celebrated on both sides of the border came the news of the exit of one of its most loved luminaries, who was almost a hundred years old himself. If anyone were to try and make a mosaic of this engaging history, it would not be complete without its most feared four-letter word - Pran.

An unofficial survey of schools in India in the 1980s revealed that, despite the population explosion, not a single child had been named Pran for at least ten years. Indian cinema's premiere menace of the 1950s, 60s and 70s could not have received a better compliment.

Pran's roles always found him deeply engrossed in one of the seven deadly sins. When you saw his eyes move around on the screen, you knew that he was planning to poach on forbidden territory, whether it was a rich uncle's estate or the hero's beloved. But invariably death was his just reward: he was either dropped from a helicopter or off a cliff's edge or for a more dramatic end, the hero would finish him off in a damning fight session before the police arrived at the scene. The final showdown was with pneumonia at age 93, and Pran gave it a good fight. He eventually lost his last fight too.

Handsome Pran had drifted into films at the age of 20 when a producer met him at a paan shop and offered him a villain's role in a Punjabi film Yamla Jatt in 1940. Pran cheerfully accepted it for a princely Rs 50. The film's success led to his being signed to play the hero opposite Noor Jehan in Khandaan in 1942. He had acted in 22 films in Lahore and was clearly cut out for villain roles by the time he migrated to Bombay after Partition.

Nothing really sensational came along until Halaku in 1956. In Halaku, Pran was so terrifying as the iron-fisted Mongol king that even the hero Ajit (who later was to become another screen bad guy) had problems concentrating. Pran was convinced that costumes maketh the character and from then onwards he was a model for scrupulous appearance. His attire instantly branded him as a bad guy.

Whether it was the zamindar lusting after the mountain maid in Madhumati, the pimp in Adalat, the imposter in Tumsa Nahi Dekha or Raaka the dreaded dacoit in Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai, Pran excelled on all counts.

The 1960s ushered in a new set of chaste and chased leading ladies but Pran continued to be the only one who could be relied upon for the real bad guy's role. That is, until Manoj Kumar made the now famous villain a major success as the hero's cynical supporter Malang Chacha.

Pran then turned to comedy and with Ashok Kumar brought the roof down in the hilarious Victoria 203 in 1972. However, after playing great character roles in Bobby, Zanjeer, Amar Akbar Anthony, and Kasauti, when Pran contemplated playing villain again, he found the landscape changed, his loud acting out of step and the competition taking away the edge that he once had.

For 60 years and no less than 350 films for a track record, Pran became an icon, picking up dozens of acting, civilian and national awards and at least once even refusing them. He refused the Filmfare Award for the Best Supporting Actor in Be-imaan in 1972 because he felt that the best Music Award should have gone to Ghulam Mohammed for Pakeezah and not to the music duo Shankar-Jaikishan for Be-imaan. That he felt was a professional be-imaani. Few would have that moral courage.

They say whatever one speaks does not get dissipated but travels into space, towards infinity. Pran's voice is out there too and will fondly be remembered - for all its rancorous malevolence.

The writer is a film and music aficionado who believes in a world without borders.

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