The veteran actor Ajit essayed the role of Seth Dharamdas Teja in "Zanjeer" in 1973.
And a new era of villainy dawned.
Villains till then were these feudal, lascivious Zamindars who always eyed innocent village belles & hence got into conflict with the hero. Or they were mentally deranged chaps who were born evil.
Seth Dharamdas Teja was neither. He was a cool, calculated & outwardly sophisticated businessman & his sole motive in life was to make piles of money. In that respect, Teja was not very different from the Corporate CEOs of today. Of course, with money came power & that is what Teja of Zanjeer was after. Smuggling of gold, which was rapidly becoming acceptable in India in the 1970s, was just a means to an end.
This shift to an urban villain & stories being set against the grimy, gruelling backdrop of a city (as in Deewar) was one reason why films like Zanjeer were such a big hit.
Zanjeer is mostly remembered for launching Amitabh Bachchan's career but Ajit played a big part in its success.
And "Mona Darling" (I wonder if he ever called her "darling" in the film) became part of the film folklore too.