CHANDIGARH: The He-Man of Bollywood Dharmendra, who passed away on Monday after a glittering showbiz career spanning 65 years, never forgot his roots in Dangon village, around 25 kilometres from Ludhiana in Punjab.
Born Dharam Singh Deol in 1935 at his mother's village Nasrali, also near Ludhiana, Dharmendra had a deep emotional bond with Dangon and would often visit. A few years ago, he had gifted his ancestral land to his extended family who still live there.
Talking to TNIE, his nephew Buta Singh Deol said, "Dharmendra uncle was my father Manjit Singh’s cousin. The last time he came to the village was in 2019 when his son Sunny Deol fought the parliamentary elections from Gurdaspur. I also went to Gurdaspur to campaign for him."
"Before that, he came to the village in 2015-16 when he transferred 19 kanal and three marla land to my father Manjit Singh and my uncle Shingara Singh (now deceased). As he had left decades ago to Mumbai, our family has been taking care of his land and we have been tilling it. He never forgot his roots and us," he says.
In Dharmendra's ancestral home in Dangon now live Singh, his wife Gurpreet Kaur, father Manjit Singh and 103-year-old grandmother Pritam Kaur, who is the actor's aunt (wife of his father's brother late Jagir Singh). "I along with my grandfather and then father used to go to Mumbai every year to show Dharmendra the land assessment papers so that he has no doubt in his mind that his ancestral land has been kept intact. A few years ago, he came and transferred the land in the name of my father and uncle as we have taken care of it," recalls Singh.
He says that they were in regular touch with Dharmendra and had last spoken to him about two months ago, adding that they were also in touch with his sons Sunny and Bobby Deol. "He was close to his cousin Shingara Singh, my father’s younger brother, and was heartbroken when he died. He spoke to us on video call," he recalled.
The late actor's father Kewal Krishan was a government school teacher, while his mother Satwant Kaur was a homemaker. He spent his early life in Sahnewal village and studied at Government Senior Secondary School at Lalton Kalan, Ludhiana. "As his father used to get transferred in his job, uncle (Dharmendra) grew up at Sahnewal," says Singh.
In the early 1950s, Dharmendra left for Mumbai by train from Sahnewal. But he continued to make many surprise visits to Dangon, Sahnewal and Lalton to meet his old friends and acquaintances.
