MUMBAI: Dharmendra made a soft landing in Hindi cinema singing Mukesh’s “Mujhko is raat ki tanhai mein awaaz na do” in Arjun Hingorani’s Dil Bhi Tera Hum Bhi Tere (1960), a sad, star-crossed love story about the poor and disempowered in Mumbai, who are unable to rise above their circumstances.
The film also showcased a facet of Dharmendra’s personality that he came to be identified with for the rest of his life—his unquestionable handsomeness. The audience could not take its eyes off the chaste good looks and trim body he sported as a young street salesman-turned-boxer.
A few years down the line, the screen caught fire, metaphorically, in O P Ralhan’s Phool Aur Patthar (1966) when Garam-Dharam, as he later came to be called, loomed over a sleeping Meena Kumari and took his shirt off to thoughtfully shield her from the cold.
At a time when fitness was not quite the characteristic of a Hindi film hero, Dharmendra rang in a new paradigm of robustness. A legacy carried forward by the likes of Vinod Khanna and Salman Khan, and practically every single contemporary male star.
However, there has been a significant difference: Dharmendra’s was not about sculpted, gym-toned, six-pack abs but a rugged, healthy male ideal. His masculinity before getting taken over by the action and stunts and loudness in the 80s was also underlined with a quiet tenderness, overwhelming romance and playful humour.
Dharmendra remained impervious to the superstardom of his contemporaries, Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan, but didn’t get celebrated as much for his own. Despite the diversity of roles in over 300 films and 65 years in the film industry, dotted with innumerable hits, being the He-Man ended up defining Dharmendra and confining him as well.
But for every action entertainer like Raj Khosla’s Mera Gaon Mera Desh (1971), and Nasir Hussain’s Yaadon Ki Baaraat (1973), there was Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s hilarious Chupke Chupke, and the same filmmaker’s poignant Satyakam. And of course, there was Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay.
Through the 80s, 90s and 2000s, his career began sliding, and his own children and nephew—Sunny, Bobby, Esha and Abhay Deol—took to showbiz. He later retired to his farmhouse in Lonavala.
It took Sriram Raghavan to celebrate the Garam-Dharam magic in Johnny Gaddar (2007). And, ironically, it’s Raghavan’s Ikkis, a few weeks away from release, that’d perhaps be his last, and posthumous, performance. From a martyr in Haqeeqat to the father of one in the Raghavan film, hopefully, it would be the fitting finale for the multi-layered person and actor Dharmendra was.