Beyond the He-Man: The Tender, Unforgettable Dharmendra

Dharmendra's kindness and legacy leave an indelible mark.

A legend remembered not just for his iconic roles, but for the compassion, humour, and quiet heroism that defined the man behind the stardom.

(Photo Courtesy: Vibhushita Singh/The Quint)

It was July 26 2005—the day of Mumbai’s calamitous monsoon downpour—when his long-time secretary, 82-year-old Bhaag Singh suffered a heart seizure at Dharmendra’s bungalow in the Juhu-Vile Parle enclave.

Without a moment’s delay, he flung his secretary’s limp body over his shoulder and placed him in an airboat borrowed from a neighbour. Accompanied by Dharmendra's sons, Sunny and Bobby, Bhaag Singh was rushed to a nursing home despite the neck-deep floods. The secretary was saved just in the nick of time. I’d covered the story of his real-life heroism for the freshly-started DNA newspaper; it was buried in an inconspicuous corner.

This incident was quite a quintessential aspect of the actor’s sentimental nature. “I’d have rather died myself than let my Bhaag Singh go right before my eyes,” he told me later, “If I hadn’t, I would have never been able to face a mirror again.”

Knowing Dharmendra

To know Dharmendra Kewal Krishna Deol (born 8 December 1935)—mononymously famous as Dharmendra—closely has been the purest takeaway from my career in journalism. None of those mandatory quid pro quos here.

Circa 1976, when I was a raw trainee at the Times of India, I called him in his make-up room at Nataraj Studio for an interview. He had paused, asking, “But why me, bache? You sound too young,” before conceding, “Okay, come over to the studio today if you can. I can’t refuse a newcomer, the way I used to be refused. It hurts.”

Our conversation was one-sided, mostly me gushing that I was his fan-boy. He gave me a hug and smiled indulgently, saying, “Prove that by staying in touch.”

The Lifetime Achievement Award

That I did, and in 1997, as editor of Filmfare, was thrilled to drop in at his house to request him to accept the Lifetime Achievement Award. "What!” he exclaimed, startled. “You must be joking. Although I am one of the Filmfare Talent Contest winners, I’ve never been given an award. Why now?”

I assured him that he had deserved to win the Best Actor trophy for his heart-wrenching performance as an incorruptible construction engineer in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Satyakam, and as the disarming faux chauffeur in Chupke Chupke. Ignoring those lapses he assented, “Of course, I will accept the award, but there’s one condition—that Dilip Kumar should present it to me on stage.”

Dharmendra on the cover of Filmfare 

(Photo Courtesy: Khalid Mohamed) 

It was no secret that he had first contemplated film acting after seeing Dilip Kumar in Shaheed. 

The thespian was more than willing to present the trophy, saying, “You know what, I sometimes wonder why God didn’t me make me as good looking as Dharmendra. Sure, Saira (Banu) and I will be there to do the honours.”

As it happened, the Filmfare Awards ceremony turned out to be a fiasco for other reasons that evening. A group of senior police officers, incensed on not being assigned front row seats, were threatening to cut the power supply.

Meanwhile, the over-the-moon Dharmendra was going way over the prescribed time to end his acceptance speech—unaware of the police intervention—with tears in his eyes, continuing, “I won’t stop, come what may...Such a day doesn’t come in my life every day.” Gratifyingly, he could pour all his heart out before the lights went out, cutting short the upcoming dance performance by Madhuri Dixit and the finale qawwali by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and his troupe.

The Go-To Person

Dharmendra was my go-to person when I was harassed by a producer for my review of his film Joshilaay. Its director Shekhar Kapur, who had withdrawn his name from the credits, laughed facetiously, saying “Now let’s see how you squirm out of this.” So much for expecting solidarity.

After a year of the court case which was going nowhere, Dharmendra called me over to his house and rang up the producer Sibte Hassan Rizvi, saying, “How dare you take my little brother to court? If you don’t withdraw the case immediately, pay me the lakhs you owe me for doing your Baharon ki Manzil. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

At the next hearing, the case was withdrawn and my saviour wouldn’t even accept a ‘thank you’, insisting, “Forget about it. I’m always there for you at any hour, any day.”

"Two for Prakash and Two for ‘The Other One’ (Hema Malini)"

There was this innocent, rustic quality about him, blushing when he once told me that he had fallen madly in love with a “girl with beautiful eyes” always passing by on a cycle rickshaw in the village of Nasrali, Punjab. But by the time he sent her a love letter, she was already engaged to be married.

“My father would have never approved in any case, since she belonged to another faith. He would have beaten me up black and blue," he had told me.

That shade of embarrassment, I saw again, when he was shooting for JP Dutta’s Batwara in Bikaner. I was about to take off on a shopping spree when he asked, “Could you get me four saris? Two for Prakash and two for ‘the other one’ (Hema Malini). Make the colours very different for all the saris, or they’ll give me hell.”

Dharmendra with Hema Malini 

Vinod Khanna, Scotch, and Politics

At the same shoot, during late evening, Dharmendra and his co-actor Vinod Khanna were on their maybe third or fourth round of scotch and soda. Something provoked Khanna to rain invectives about Amitabh Bachchan, and he yelled at me, “Journalists like you are conditioned to like him,” and then turned towards Dharmendra, asking him whatever had possessed to recommend Bachchan for a role in Sholay?

Next morning, Dharmendra knocked at my hotel door and pleaded, “Darling, please don’t write a word about what Vinod was saying. Thoda high tha.”

Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan in a still from Sholay 

(Photo Courtesy: YouTube)

The 'He-Man', as he was labelled, was fond of his drinks, yes. While travelling from Bangalore to the outskirts for the shoot of Aag hi Aag, he would ask the driver to stop for a minute, vanish into a bush and return chewing elaichi. When I pretended to be unaware that he was stopping for a swig from his pocket flask, he grinned sheepishly. “Okay, okay, sirf acting kar raha tha. Can’t hide anything from you," he said.

Neither did he hesitate while giving me an on-the-record quote about how he was relieved to leave politics after serving as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s elected Member of Parliament from the Bikaner constituency from 2004-2009.

Showing me photographs of the developmental work he had initiated in Bikaner, he said somewhat sadly, “There  are too many wheels within wheels in politics. I joined politics only because Atal Bihari Vajpayee wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer."

Dharmendra with his sons Sunny and Bobby Deol 

(Photo Courtesy: Khalid Mohamed) 

Mr Congeniality Did Lose His Cool 

'Mr Congeniality' himself, Dharamendra was adored by the journalists and the film fraternity alike. But that didn’t mean that he couldn’t lose his cool.

In 1978, while participating in a rally to collect funds for the flood victims of Bengal, he sighted MS Krishna who had been gossiping non-stop in his column in Blitz about the actor’s relationship with Hema Malini. Krishna was roughed up and hospitalised. Meanwhile, Devyani Chaubal who had called Hema Malini a ‘stale idli’ in Star & Style sped from the spot as far as her heels could take her. 

Within a week, Filmfare brokered a peace pact between Dharmendra and Krishna, who was given a handsome compensation cheque to withdraw his case from the police.

"Most Charming and Handsome Lead"

I could go on till kingdom come about Dharmendra, the hero of over 300 films, scoring as many as eight consecutive hits in 1987. We saw him as the ailing family patriarch of Rocky aur Rani ki Prem Kahaani. 

On being contacted, its producer-director Karan Johar stated:

Dharamji was a legend, the embodiment of a hero in our cinema—the most charming and handsome lead we can ever have on celluloid. More than that he was the kindest man we knew, the most positive man for his industry and the most loved. He leaves behind an irreplaceable legacy of cinema magic, he will be missed sorely by his fans and fraternity.

Karan Johar

Dharmendra and Alia Bhatt in a still from 'Rocky aur Rani ki Prem Kahaani'

(Photo Courtesy: YouTube)

According to Asha Parekh who co-starred with him in as many as eight films,“He (Dharmendra) would be scared of me, since I was already an established actress and relatively speaking he was a newcomer. He kept his distance always, but when we last met for a TV reality show, he hugged me so tightly, as if he wasn’t ever going to see me again. And that’s exactly what happened…”

Many will miss the bear hugs Dharmendra would envelope them in. And his house at Juhu-Vile Parle, where once strangers from Punjab would be given shelter and meals if they had nowhere else to go, will now be bereft of the actor—who had taken to writing poems or reciting the nazms of Mirza Ghalib, one of which was:

Hazaaron khwahishen aisi ke har khwahishpe dam nikle,
Bahut nikle mere arman lekin fir bhi kamnikle.

(Khalid Mohamed is a film critic, film director and screenwriter. He has written novels and biographies and is currently working on his memoirs of Bollywood.)