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Dharmendra

From a director to one of his favourite actorsSriram Raghavan pays tribute to the broad-chested, dreamy-eyed movie star

He could play the action star or the sensitive hero, but Dharmendra also had great comic timing. Photo: Photographs courtesy Subhash ChhedaPremium
He could play the action star or the sensitive hero, but Dharmendra also had great comic timing. Photo: Photographs courtesy Subhash Chheda

A child on a bridge is watching the rail tracks below. His parents have been killed and his brothers separated. A train is approaching. In one continuous 360-degree shot, the camera moves from the child to the oncoming train and moves back to his feet. Only, the feet now belong to a man. The camera tilts up and it’s Dharmendra. There was no Dolby then but the movie hall was drowned in a thousand whistles.

Raj N. Sippy’s Sitamgar introduces Dharmendra taking a snooze on the roof of a moving train. In one of the bogeys, a hard-core criminal is guarded by a posse of policemen. The screen is somewhat shrunk and I wonder if there is a projection mistake. Then Dharmendra wakes up and stretches his hands…and the screen goes CinemaScope.

For the past two days, instead of cracking the climax of my upcoming script, I’ve been watching YouTube songs and clips featuring Dharmendra and wondering what I can write that is new, about the most handsome and definitely most underrated Hindi film star ever.

Kuch dil ne kaha from Anupama is one of my 10 best songs ever. We see a young Dharmendra watching Sharmila Tagore sing in her garden. He is a young, sensitive, middle-class poet who falls in love with the introverted girl, whose father blames her for his wife’s death. Tick “Subtle, restrained performance".

My next watch is the same pair, this time in Chupke Chupke. Ab ke sajan saawan mein. Dharmendra, as driver Pyaremohan hiding behind a curtain and listening to Sharmila and playfully biting her finger. Tick “Great comic timing".

Cut to Bachke kahan jaoge, a high-energy cabaret number from Yakeen, a spy drama directed by Brij, perhaps the only film in which Dharmendra plays a villain—in a double role, of course. Tick “Macho, action hero".

The train sequence from Sholay, which shows his prowess in drama, action and comedy. Don’t we love the moment when, in the midst of the action, he takes a swig from the bottle and blows the train whistle?

I revisit Rafta rafta,O meri mehbooba with Zeenat Aman, Kuch kehta hai yeh sawan from Raj Khosla’s Mera Gaon Mera Desh, another of Dharmendra’s action blockbusters, with a terrific Vinod Khanna as the dacoit. The film is an edgy precursor to Sholay.

That’s macho, He-Man Dharam wooing his ladies. Just to show how Dharmendra’s sensitive eyes create an intriguing romance, check out Aap ke haseen rukh pe aaj from the Guru Dutt production Baharen Phir Bhi Aayengi. Dharmendra on a piano serenading two lovely ladies, Mala Sinha and Tanuja, in black and white. Just tell me who is in love with whom in this clip.

The poster of O.P. Ralhan’s Phool Aur Patthar has a bare-bodied Dharmendra looming over Meena Kumari. It’s the most striking image of the film that catapulted him to stardom. Nutan, Suchitra Sen, Mala Sinha and Meena Kumari were actors who had strong, women-centric roles written for them. Dharmendra, with his sensitive face and eye-candy looks, was the perfect male choice in these films.

Chemistry—how often do we see it today? Tera peecha na, main chhodunga soniye, Dharmendra and Hema Malini in Jugnu, in which Dharmendra plays an urban Robin Hood. Or Tera sheeshe ka samaan, also with Hema Malini, from Manmohan Desai’s Chacha Bhatija.

One of my biggest profits from Johnny Gaddaar was that I got a chance to work with Dharmendra. I once asked him about how he dealt with song sequences, especially the robust dancing ones. He said, whenever I have to do a song, I just think there’s a tiger in front of me. Either I take him under control, or else he’ll eat me.

The magazine Stardust called him “Garam Dharam" in 1970. Thirty-five years later, my 19-year-old assistant met him for the first time on the sets of Johnny Gaddaar. Her first words were, “Oh, he is so hot."

I chance upon a clip from Guddi, Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s coming-of-age film about a schoolgirl with a crush on a film star. Dharmendra plays himself and makes it look so effortless that we simply miss the fact that it’s a terrific performance.

I dug out my DVD of Pratiggya, a loose remake of Guns for San Sebastian. It’s a dacoit revenge drama dressed as an over- the-top comedy. The sheer joy and abandon of Dharmendra’s performance is that much more enjoyable because we don’t see the skill and effort behind it. Pratiggya is one of the dozen-plus, super-duper hits of Dharmendra with Hema Malini. It’s also got the terrific Mohammed Rafi number Main jat yamla pagla deewaana.

There was a time in the 1970s when three Dharmendra films were running simultaneously in theatres to full houses. This was at a time when Rajesh Khanna was on top and Amitabh Bachchan had just arrived. Many stars got sidelined, but Dharmendra was the rock that wouldn’t budge.

Dharmendra is a hungry actor and gave us superb improvised moments in Johnny Gaddaar. More important, he was there to give cues to other actors with the same enthusiasm. It’s this humility to the medium that makes him so enduring and endearing.

Did the sensitive jail doctor in Bandini expect that one day he would be wearing a black frock and indulging in lance fights in Manmohan Desai’s El Cid type swashbuckler Dharam Veer? Dharmendra told us that it was his father’s favourite film.

Dharmendra tried his best not to get trapped in any image. He did Aankhen, a spy blockbuster, in the same year as his most sensitive film Satyakam. He played a shy poet in the Vijay Anand thriller Black Mail. The same year also had Rajinder Singh Bedi’s Phagun and A. Bhimsingh’s Loafer. He shone in three terrific late 1980s films that didn’t get their due. J.P. Dutta’s Ghulami, Hathyar and Batwara were serious dramas that showcased a mature Dharmendra. However, Anil Sharma’s masala action film Hukumat broke all records in 1987 and finally trapped him in the action star image that he is unfortunately most known for today.

The 1990s were not the best times for Hindi cinema and Dharmendra did a lot of bad films in that period. I think he did those films simply because he wanted to be in the midst of what he loved best—the shooting of a film.

It’s the time for trivia lists in the 100th year of Indian cinema. If we were to make a list of the 100 best Hindi films, we’ll find a lot of Dharmendra in them.

Abhi to haath mein jaam hai from Ramesh Sippy’s Seeta Aur Geeta is buffering.

Sriram Raghavan directed Dharmendra in Johnny Gaddaar in 2007. The film-maker has also directed Ek Hasina Thi and Agent Vinod.

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Published: 04 May 2013, 12:07 AM IST
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